Kenley Jansen’s Emasculating Cutter, Emasculating M. Trumbo

At about 4am ET this morning — a time when only criminals and Australians (i.e. a very tan criminal) are awake and active — the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers began the 2014 baseball season.

The event, of course, carries all manner of significance for all manner of people. For the present author, however, the main concern regarding the contest wasn’t the final score or how Yasiel Puig looked as he entered his sophomore campaign, but rather how many pitches right-hander Kenley Jansen would require to emasculate an opposing batter with his emasculating cutter.

The answer, as the footage below indicates, appears to have been “roughly zero pitches.”

With his club leading by a score of 3-1, Jansen entered the game in the ninth inning — which inning he began with a 92 mph cutter to Mark Trumbo, as illustrated here:

Jansen followed that with a second cutter — at 94 mph, in this case, and at which Trumbo offered with little in the way of success.

Up 0-2 in the count now, Jansen threw roughly the same pitch as on the previous two occasions, except slightly higher and slightly harder. The result, one finds, was not an ideal one for the batter.

Finally, for the benefit of the reader, here is that last pitch, again — except in this case of Mark Trumbo getting all emasculated in slower motion: