[Burner]

Ouch.
The rules of baseball requires the back foot to have contact to what is called a “rubber,” a rectangled shaped hard slab of rubber on a small hill called a mound. A pitcher does this by standing his shoulders perpendicular to the batter, not have them parallel like in cricket which is a running throw. A pitcher must make a stride - a forward motion - down and off the “rubber.” In order to make this slide off and down the hill or the mound, the front leg must lift and step forward. This becomes a weight transfer, what baseball players call “putting the hip into the pitch.” The pitchers shoulders do become square to the batter after the front leg lands after the stride. The front leg movement, the pitcher’s stride, is the weight transfer, pivot and power package of the pitch. A good pitcher does not throw flat long throws. 60 feet 6 inches. The pitch will move downward from the top of a high hand release, the wrist snap puts a spin on the ball and if well executed will “break” off its path a few inches from the batters whirling bat. Strike one!

Mike,

A Cricketer's throw, like a baseball pitch or baseball Outfielders throw, also begins from a position perpendicular, not square, to the intended line of flight of the ball.

Neither baseball Outfielders or Cricketers (who, arguably, throw as flat and fast as your average pitcher) find it necessary, or advantageous, to precede the release of the ball by the lifting, and waving about in the air, of the front foot. Such a motion has no mechanical advantage whatsoever, no matter how macho it appears to be.

A "throw" is a throw, is a throw.

Strike out!