When Ernie Clement pitched the bottom of the eighth inning in the Toronto Blue Jays’ 11-0 loss to the Miami Marlins on Monday, much of his appearance was typical of a position player toeing the mound.
Clement gave up three hits and a run, plus he plunked Garrett Hampson with a rogue pitch. In short, he looked like a guy better off with the bat in his hands than staring down opposing hitters.
But there was more to Clement’s appearance than the box score reveals. It was made special by the fact he featured a 53.3 mph knuckleball. The pitch was not notably effective, but in 2023 it’s remarkable to see an offering that has become unbelievably rare in recent years.
In fact, the five knuckleballs Clement threw were the only five knucklers that have been thrown in the majors this season.
Since the beginning of 2022, his 15 knuckleballs thrown in three pitching appearances are more than the rest of MLB players combined (9).
Now, Clement’s knuckler is not a pitch that could be described as an effective one. Of those 15 knuckleballs, 11 have been called balls, three have gone for hits — including a home run — and one resulted in a ground-ball double play.
It’s clear that for better or worse he can make the pitch move plenty, though.
He also has a sense of humour about it. When asked about that pitch thrown behind Gio Urshela, he said, “I had to send him a message after his couple of hits today. I threw that knuckleball behind him just to let him know.”
In a sense, it’s sad that the closest thing MLB has to a torchbearer for one its most charmingly idiosyncratic elements is a guy who seems to enjoy messing around with something that isn’t even part of his job. Even on the rare occasions Clement pitches, he throws a low-70s ‘fastball’ more than 75% of the time.
On the other hand, at a time when knuckleballers are fighting to keep a dying art alive, it’s fun to see the pitch rear its head in any form.
The offering is such an oddity that veteran catcher Taylor Heineman — who has 5,799 pro innings behind the plate to his name — was totally handcuffed by it on Monday, dropping two of the three knucklers that didn’t make contact with a bat or player.
Blue Jays fans are used to having the MLB’s top knuckleballer on the roster from the R.A. Dickey years, and somehow that’s the case once again with Clement.
It won’t take much for somehow to knock the utility man off his perch, but for now he’s the only knuckleball practitioner in the major leagues.
Hopefully someone more worthy will take up the mantle soon, but no team has made a concerted effort to develop knuckleballers since the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016. The most notable current knuckleball pitchers are Mickey Jannis — who’s currently pitching in the independent Atlantic League — and Matt Waldron, who is in Triple-A but has a 7.02 ERA there after posting an 8.44 ERA in his first opportunity at that level in 2022.
The future of the knuckleball in the majors looks murky, and its present it’s virtually nonexistent. That’s why it’s worth enjoying what Clement did on Monday, even if he’s a knuckleball hobbyist rather than a devotee.
