When baseball games go horribly wrong, fans can get treated to one of the most hilarious sights in sports: position players pitching.
That’s what happened on Thursday in Cincinnati. With the Cubs getting blown out by the Reds – who would go on to win 20-5 – Chicago shortstop Andrelton Simmons took to the mound in the eighth inning. And he managed to produce at least one bright spot.
Simmons, who has been clocked throwing 94 miles per hour in a game on a throw from shortstop, threw a pitch that was less than half that speed. His 44.9 mph pitch to Kyle Farmer was the slowest pitch in major league baseball history to generate a swinging strike, per Codify Baseball.
Simmons also had one pitch as slow as 39 mph, while also topping out on another at 79 mph.
Not all went well for Simmons, though, who gave up five runs on five hits and issued one walk in his inning of work. The loss dropped the lowly Cubs to fourth place in the NL Central and just four games ahead of the last-place Reds, who split the four-game series with Chicago.
