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Left-Handed Pitcher

Every team dreams of having a great left handed pitcher in its rotation.  Because southpaw pitchers are fewer in number, teams like to mix it up for the batters and the easiest way of doing that is replacing a right hander with a left handed pitcher.

Why are left handed people sometimes called a southpaw? The origin seems to come from baseball. Most ball fields have the batter facing east; therefore, a left hand pitcher is throwing from the south side of the field.

Left hand hitters many times have a difficult time with lefty pitchers, more so than a righty versus righty match-up.

The Best Left Hand Pitchers: Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Steve Carlton

The Best of the Rest:  Randy Johnson, Whitey Ford