Title: How Blue Jays’ Bowden Francis can maximize his splitter
Date: June 21, 2024
Original Source: Sportsnet
Synopsis: In my latest at Sportsnet, I wrote about Bowden Francis introducing a splitter, why catchers like it, and all the grips he had to trial-and-error before finding the right one.
The first splitter grip Bowden Francis tried wasn’t aggressive enough. His index and middle fingers were split around the narrower gap in the baseball’s seams, widening along with the seams with the horseshoe at the bottom of his grip.
The second grip he tried went far in the other direction, stretching his fingers around the widest part of the ball’s seam pattern, spread more than two inches apart at the first knuckles. The ball came out of his hands more like a forkball, almost knuckleball-like in its lack of spin.
It was a third grip, shown to him by teammate Chris Bassitt, where Francis found the goldilocks point, a grip that was aggressive enough to generate unique movement but not so aggressive that he couldn’t induce consistent spin. This “one-o-clock” grip still splits the fingers, but the index fingers stays along one seam to create a rip effect down the seam when he releases it, with the middle finger aggressively tucked wide to the outside of the ball.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 