As a writer, Connelly Early has an annoying name. There isn’t a great substitute for the word early, and it makes for some awkward sentences. Fortunately for Early, his pitching makes for some awkward swings and is incredibly fun to watch, which makes up for his syntactically frustrating name.

Early was faced with a challenge in his second career start. He faced the Athletics in his debut and had to run it back exactly a week later. Facing the same hitters typically gives an edge to the hitters, knowing how the pitcher will approach them.

In his first start, Early used his sinker against lefties to get ahead, turning to sweepers and curveballs to put them away. Against righties, he kept everything down in the zone and “pitched backwards”. He used his breaking stuff early in at-bats, turn

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