The strike zone is effectively a pentagon-shaped vertical column with these identical proportions that is always immediately above home plate, no matter where the hitter stands. A pitcher's time to toss a ball through the strike zone is less than 0.02 seconds. During major league baseball games, a batter will face about 250 pitches per game. A pitch can be classified as one of four types: ball, strike, foul, or wild pitch. A ball is thrown and not caught by the catcher; a strike is thrown and hits the batter on the hand, arm, or chest; a foul is thrown high and outside the strike zone; and a wild pitch goes beyond the first-base line or third base and does not contact any part of the bat. A pitcher needs only three balls and two strikes to be awarded the victory. It takes an average of 2.5 milliseconds to release a ball stringed together from silk molecules. That's more than enough time for a pitcher to release a ball. Strikeouts are when a pitcher throws a ball and it doesn't go anywhere near the plate. This happens when the batter doesn't swing at the ball or when he/she misses it completely. In either case, the pitch is called a strike.