I’m not a particularly fast person. I was born in Jamaica, though, and Usain Bolt has practically been the country’s patron saint for the last decade, so particularly fast people amaze me. And what’s most amazing about Bolt isn’t even his raw foot speed, but rather that foot speed relative to his height. At 6-foot-5, he stands out among the crowd, from the blocks to the finish line, taking up to 15% fewer strides while breaking records.

We sort of have our own Usain Bolt in the major leagues. His name is Brad Zimmer and he patrols center field for the Cleveland Indians.

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When Marlins reliever Brad Ziegler made the switch to throwing out of a submarine motion, his new mechanics made him sore. In the hips, as he remembers it. Ask fellow submariner Darren O’Day if his delivery was related to his hip labrum surgery, and his answer is succinct: “Absolutely.” Now fellow side-slotter Andrew Triggs is headed for that same surgery and it’s fair to ask: is the sidearm or submarine delivery hard on the hips?

It’s never easy to answer these sorts of questions because of the problem of sample. There might be two true submariners in baseball today (O’Day and Ziegler), and then a few who others who live low — a group that includes Steve Cishek, Pat Neshek, Joe Smith, and the like. Head any higher on the release-point list, and you’re already at Chris Sale, nobody’s idea of a sidearmer.

If you just take the list of pitchers who have recorded hip problems in the last 10 years, you get 33 different names. Hardly an epidemic. Take those 33 pitchers, and look at their average arm slot, and you might think you’ve found something.

Pitchers with hip problems release their pitches, on average, three-and-a-half inches lower than the general population.

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Talk to pitchers on the record, and the links they’re willing to draw between an increase in blisters and what looks like a tighter baseball are minimal. That makes sense — and it’s doesn’t seem to be concern for politics or press relations that’s holding them back. There are so many confounding factors that it’s the probably the right way to approach the situation.

Talk to a few pitchers off the record, though, and another link emerges, one that might provide some insight into the relationship between seams and blisters.

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Are you nostalgic for 2015? There are a few reasons to be, not the least of which is Fetty Wap’s Billboard dominance. Or, you know, when home runs were more rare. Back when the ball’s seams were probably higher and balls didn’t travel as far. Back when hitting 20 homers by the half was tough to do, and there weren’t 24 players that had done so by the All-Star Game.

What if we could go back?

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Justin Bour is going to participate in the Home Run Derby tonight. He’s tied with a bunch of other guys at 16th in baseball with 20 homers. He’ll surpass his previous career high early in the second half.

This is the point at which we normally address a crazy mechanical change a player’s made, allowing him to reach a new level of performance. That crazy change might not exist in Bour’s case, though.

The player himself doesn’t think there’s a big adjustment in his rear-view mirror. “From being in pro ball to now, I’ve only made minor changes to my swing, but for the most part, I’ve always just been myself and tried to get a little better every day,” Bour said before this past weekend’s series against the Giants.

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“Watch a batting practice of mine and it’s real boring,” said Freddie Freeman with a smile. The Atlanta first baseman is back, and he’s playing third base right now. You’d think the change of position might be the strangest thing about him. After studying angles with the team’s infield coach Ron Washington, though, he feels like playing third won’t actually be so difficult. What’s weirder is his approach during batting practice. As both his numbers and geometry suggest, however, his unusual BP strategy makes sense for him.

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This year, we’ve seen the debut of two 24-year-old lefties who have taken their own paths to the big leagues. Jordan Montgomery in New York and Sean Newcomb in Atlanta both look like they’re dealing, but they’ve had to work to get here. Listed at 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-5, respectively, it’s worth wondering if their height has slowed down the development of their command, if it’s taken them longer to get their impressive levers in the right places. There’s some evidence that might be the case. But these two pitchers remind us that there are very few absolutes when it comes to mechanics, and that even tall pitchers are as different from each other as they are from the general population.

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Coming into the season, Michael Conforto saw opportunity with the Mets despite a crowded outfield. He seized his chance early in the year and was among the majors’ best players in April and May. Then the league made an adjustment, one with which he’s struggling to adjust back. You could call that regression. You could also just call it baseball — as the player himself did recently with a shrug — but that ebb and flow is important. He needs to figure out this latest puzzle to get back on track.

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