White Sox left-hander Derek Holland breaks a sweat before he even reaches the mound to pitch.
Before the Dutch Oven’s start against the Cleveland Indians on Friday, the White Sox tweeted a video of Holland’s pregame handshakes with his teammates.
The team clearly spends plenty of time practicing their handshakes, so it could nail this nearly two minute compilation of the pregame ritual.
Pre-game handshakes = 💯 pic.twitter.com/VbDelA9TjP — Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 28, 2017
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In the video, Holland walks beside catcher Omar Narvaez toward the team’s dugout. He starts by fist bumping one teammate as he enters the dugout. What follows is a series of creative and classic handshakes.
For one, Holland pulls back an imaginary bow and arrow and shoots it at his teammate. He gets into center fielder Leury Garcia’s face. Holland also gives third baseman coach Nick Capra a giant hug.
One of the best ones is when slugger Matt Davidson fist bumps Holland before the pitcher throws up an imaginary ball that Davidson takes a swing at. The two pause for a second to admire the imaginary ball going over the green monster.
Although the handshakes appear to get Holland pumped to take the mound, there isn’t a correlation between awesome handshakes and a winning season. Holland is 5-9 this season with a 5.12 ERA.
