You don't have to explain the balance of risk vs. reward to Eddie Guardado. If he hadn't asked Rick Aguilera how to throw a split-fingered fastball in 1996, if he hadn't given it a what-the-heck try in 2001, he wouldn't be in the Twins Hall of Fame today. He never would have become "Everyday Eddie," he couldn't have led the AL in saves, and he wouldn't have earned close to $30 million in the major leagues.
Guardado raises his left elbow close to his face and nods. "I wouldn't have this, either," he said, displaying a red, U-shaped scar, a fading remnant of his 2006 Tommy John surgery.
The Twins' bullpen coach is just one of the many pitchers who traces his blown-out elbow back to the split-finger, a pitch that, thrown well, is almost impossible to hit, yet is considered so dangerous to a pitcher's health that many organizations prohibit minor league pitchers from throwing it. Two or three decades ago, the splitter was the most popular pitch in baseball, the weapon of choice for some of the best pitchers in the game: Roger Clemens, Jack Morris, Mike Scott. Closer Bruce Sutter earned his way into the Hall of Fame with it, and his success in the 1970s and '80s had pitchers around the globe jamming baseballs between their forefinger and middle finger, a grip that produces an off-the-table drop as it reaches home plate.
But the grip also produces extra stress on the tendons of the fingers, tension on the muscles of the forearm, strain on the ligaments that hold the elbow together. As the major leagues filled up with split-finger specialists, operating rooms filled up with Tommy John patients, until teams grew alarmed at the salaries they were wasting on damaged arms. "Hardly anybody throws it anymore. It used to be almost everybody, but you can't think of more than a couple guys now," Guardado said. "Everybody moved on to cutters or sliders."
Well, almost everybody. Guardado has a new pupil now, with an antique of a pitch that reminds him of his heyday. Pat Light, a 25-year-old righthander whom the Twins picked up in a trade, throws a split-finger fastball that he rates as "my best pitch, oh, easily," despite the fact that he also possesses a 97-miles-per-hour fastball.
"I love throwing it. When I've had success with it, it's hard to go away from it," Light said. "It's tough to lay off of, even when you know it's coming."
Light learned the pitch from his father when he was a teenager but considered it a novelty and never used it in a game. He was playing catch in a Monmouth University gym in 2011 when teammate Nick Meyers threw him a knuckleball that hit him in the stomach.
"I was pretty [mad], but I can't throw a knuckler. So I threw that split-finger back and smoked him in the shin," Light said. "My pitching coach was standing there and said, 'Let's see that one on the mound.' "
