Sunday Cat Blogging

I was eagerly looking forward to seeing Texas’ Cat Osterman pitch today, even if it was via a crappy internet video connection, from a stadium in Austin with only one camera. But even so, I was treated to a memorable performance — Cat didn’t disappoint. Utah batter after Utah batter came up against Osterman, flailed wildly at Osterman’s pitches, and then headed back to the bench. Osterman struck out the first 14 batters of the game, allowed only one base hit, and finished with 18 strikeouts (out of 22 Utah batters). A spectacular performance, made all the more remarkable by my sense of disappointment when the one Utah hit happened in the fifth inning — there would not be a perfect game for Cat today.

What makes Osterman so special is that she doesn’t have a blazing fastball. Instead, she has mastered every other pitch in the book — the curve, the rise, the drop, the screwball and the change-up. They break so much that batters cannot tell what pitch is coming until it is too late, and it is a characteristic of Osterman’s games that batters don’t swing at pitches in the strike zone, and flail wildly at pitches out of the strike zone.