Mariano Rivera built a Hall of Fame career around one pitch: his notorious cutter. It’s a pitch Major Leaguers have in their arsenal, but in softball, it’s much less common and rarely has that moniker.
That is, until Portland Cascade rookie Kenzie Brown began carving up batters with hers this season.
First, let’s define a cutter in baseball. A cutter is a variant of the fastball and is designed to have a sharp break. Coming from a right-handed pitcher will “cut” away from a right-handed batter or in toward a left-handed batter.
Brown’s cutter is similar, except she can manipulate it to break in both directions.
“The cutter is unique because it’s what my ball naturally does really well – I’m a natural up-ball pitcher. So it cuts in usually to a righty or away from a righty.”
According to Brown, it just depends on the day to see where it’s moving, but it is always moving.
“It’ll usually have a little bit of late break rise along with horizontal pitch. So it’s a double plane moving pitch.”
While some baseball pitchers throw their cutter as a secondary pitch to their four-seam fastball, Brown doesn’t use it that way. The cutter is her primary pitch, and she no longer throws just a fastball. It also shouldn’t be mistaken for her rise ball.
Brown’s rise ball usually channels one plane, shooting up in the zone. The cutter has what she describes as “a little wiggle” traveling towards the plate, and then it cuts horizontally and vertically.
The similarity to her rise ball is what set her apart during her career at Arizona State and has helped her be one of the best rookie pitchers in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League this season.
The complement of the two pitches allows Brown to take advantage of a strategy known as tunneling.
Common in baseball and softball, this is when a pitcher has multiple pitches that look identical out of the hand and have similar trajectories. Hitters may think they’re getting Brown’s rise ball and commit to a swing for that pitch coming in at 68 mph. Instead, it could be her cutter with its deceptive movement in or away from their hands.
She particularly tries to harness it against lefty batters as an inside pitch; it’s easy for Brown to see because she’s left-eye dominant. To righties, it starts like a screwball and then cuts back in and up.
Brown grew up in Lake City, Illinois, and was about 12 years old when her travel ball coach, Toby Ring, introduced her to the pitch. Ring had more than 30 years of experience in men’s fastpitch and is in the Illinois ASA Hall of Fame with the Central Illinois Knights. The goal was simple: to help Brown find a pitch she could throw for strikes.
“I’ve been told I’m effectively wild my entire career,” Brown laughed. “So throwing a pitch with confidence and just letting the ball work, even if it doesn’t do exactly what I want it to every time, it’ll move in some direction. This pitch will never go straight.”
That’s why the cutter has become not only her go-to pitch but the one she throws with conviction.
“There’s a difference between command and conviction. Command is being able to hit that spot every single time. Conviction is just selling it… full confidence whether you hit the spot or not,” Brown said.
“My cutter is my pitch that I throw with conviction 100% of the time.”
Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on Instagram @savvyco.