screwball

Valenzuela learned his iconic screwball — a pitch that few can master — not in Mexico, but in the Dodger’s’ minor-league system.

Fernando Valenzuela had a screwball, but he certainly wasn’t one.

“I went out one time and told him, in Spanish, to throw his next pitch, his famous screwball, into the dirt,” Scioscia says.

But the pudgy screwball specialist with the funky delivery emerged as the team’s ace in 1981, going 13-7 with a 2.48 ERA in 25 starts and winning the NL Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards, a performance that earned him a long leash in the postseason.

During that heady 1981 season, Valenzuela used an assortment of pitches that included a screwball to become the first, and to this day only, player to win the National League Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards during the same season.