Baseball

The late innings of lopsided contests are often times for things to get weird. But David Fletcher slinging unhittable knuckleballs? You can add that to the completed part of your baseball-watching bucket list.

With Triple-A Gwinnett having played a doubleheader Tuesday and falling behind 10-2 through seven-and-a-half frames just hours later Wednesday afternoon at AutoZone Park, the bullpen was understandably tapped out. So for the second time in a week – and just the second time in his pro career, which began in 2015 – Fletcher jogged over to the mound from his starting spot on the infield.

Was the 29-year-old slinging sliders? Changeups? Curveballs? Not even Statcast could entirely pinpoint it. (Which is largely due to the fact that not much data exists on a player who before May 8 had never as so much toed the rubber in a professional setting.) But the nine times that Memphis batters swung at something that looked an awful lot like a knuckleball, they missed six of them.