Every morning we review the nastiest pitches from the previous day’s games in glorious HD GIFs. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite pitch and check back this weekend to see if it will be in contention for the GIF of the Playoffs Contest. Did we miss your favorite pitch? Send us a tweet next time @PitcherList and we’ll GIF it up + give you a shoutout here in the article.
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Chris Sale’s Slider – It may not have been the pitching duel that people were hoping for, but Sale and his counterpart, Clayton Kershaw, each had their fare share of nastiness on Tuesday. This sweeping slider to Justin Turner got a big old swing and a miss early on in this one.
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Clayton Kershaw’s Curveball – Kershaw may not have been his usual self on Tuesday, but his curveball still flashed its usual brilliance – including this offering to Ian Kinsler that dropped the veteran to a knee.
Speaking of…
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Clayton Kershaw’s Slider – Poor Ian Kinsler was one of the few Red Sox hitters who really struggled against Kershaw yesterday, here getting dropped once again by a Kershaw breaking ball, only this time it was his hard, tight slider that victimized him.
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Nathan Eovaldi’s Cutter – Eovaldi located this thing perfectly on the outside black. After bringing out 100 mile per hour cheese, a 93 mile per hour cutter that can move like this is just devastating.
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Matt Barnes‘ Curveball – Barnes dropped an absolute hammer on David Freese in the fifth inning. What better situation to get a big whiff than with two on and nobody out in a close game. Nasty.
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Joe Kelly’s Changeup – Kelly appeared on a lot of nastiest pitches articles this year, almost always because of his heater or his devastating breaking ball. However, it’s the playoffs so why not show off his heavy changeup that gets an embarrassing “swing” from Kike Hernandez.
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Craig Kimbrel’s Curveball – Even though it wasn’t a save situation, Kimbrel closed things out on Tuesday anyway. His knuckle-curveball was its usual devastating self. This pitch is at its finest when he’s busting lefties in, as you can see here to Max Muncy.
GIF Of The Night
Which was your favorite pitch? Vote below and the winner will be featured in the GIF of the Second Half Contest.
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