Ten Pat Venditte Facts
1) Italian-American switch-pitching Pat Venditte uses both hands to express himself on the podium.
2) It takes Pat Venditte twice as long as to stretch, and to get warm.
3) Pat Venditte’s six-finger glove was made by Mizuno for him, but the model was designed for switch-pitcher Greg Harris.
The Greg Harris Mizuno that Venditte uses. Photo Courtesy Jorge L. Ortiz and USAToday.
4) Pat Venditte’s name on the lineup is in blue, previously a color reserved for switch-hitters.
5) Pat Venditte dropped down to sidearm from the right side after surgery, but not because of the surgery. That was more “result-based” the pitcher said this week — he was having trouble getting righties out and Gil Patterson on the Yankees “pretty much forced me to pitch side-arm” for which the pitcher is now “very grateful.”
(Gil Patterson may have been looking at this diagram from Jeremy Greenhouse — showing the advantage for different arm slots — when he forced Pat Venditte to go sidearm.)
6) Player reactions to Pat Venditte aren’t actually that strange. “When you spend seven years in the minor leagues, the only hitters that haven’t seen you yet are the guys that have been established up here for a long time.”
7) “Almost all of the time,” the manager tells Pat Venditte which arm to use.
8) There are days when Pat Venditte is only available to pitch with one of his arms. He pitched the entire 2013 WBC strictly left-handed for Italy.
9) Pat Venditte’s arsenal is about the same against both hands, except he’s got more gas on his sinker and more drop on his slider from the right side.
As a righty:
| RHP Pitch | Count | avg(pfx_x) | avg(pfx_z) | avg(start_speed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI | 26 | -6.1 | 6.3 | 86.7 |
| SL | 23 | 11.2 | -0.5 | 73.9 |
As a lefty:
| LHP Pitch | Count | avg(pfx_x) | avg(pfx_z) | avg(start_speed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI | 6 | 6.3 | 6.5 | 81.8 |
| SL | 11 | -7.9 | 1.9 | 71.8 |
10) Pat Venditte’s sinker falls short of almost every benchmark — movement, velocity, and swinging strike rate at least — for an average pitch for either a lefty or a righty.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
He’s also amphibious.
He *is* a submariner