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 Second Half 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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Diego Castillo’s Fastball – Castillo served as the opener as the Rays rolled out nine pitchers for one of their patented bullpen days. The 24-year-old not only sported a devastating cutter, but he also came up-and-in to Stephen Piscotty at 101 mph on this fastball for the vicious whiff.
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Jose Berrios’ Curveball – Berrios was rocking his shapely curve against the Royals, which helped him pick up nine strikeouts. In addition to this swing from Adalberto Mondesi, he also drew an impressive whiff from Emilio Bonifacio, among others. One more: he tossed table-dropping changeup to get Rosell Herrera.
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Jimmy Yacabonis‘ Slider – Yacabonis had a rough outing, giving up four runs in three innings against the White Sox. But he chucked an eyebrow-raiser to Nicky Delmonico, as this breaker never seemed to quit while getting the whiff.
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Chaz Roe’s Slider – Not to be outdone, the master of the black-magic slider flung this frisbee to the A’s Matt Chapman for the looking strike. The Rays reliever (which may be a redundant distinction these days unless you’re talking about Blake Snell) put up zeroes across the board in his 1.1 innings.
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Jose Alvarado’s Two-Seamer – Sure, you ideally want to put this sort of pitch low in the zone, but when you keep it on the black with tail at 97 mph-plus, you’re doing OK. Regardless, this fastball to Oakland’s Marcus Semien was fun to watch.
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Noah Syndergaard’s Changeup – Even though it was a swinging strike, Rafael Devers was comically looking to the umpire for help after this Thor change. Credit to the third baseman for laying off this devastating 100 mph sinker on the next pitch, but Syndergaard got him swinging on another changeup a pitch later.
Position-Player Bonus
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Bryan Holaday’s Curveball – The Marlins catcher tried to one-up the White Sox’s Matt Davidson with his breaker, inducing a tremendous whiff on a 58 mph curve. Fifty. Eight. Mitch Walding’s teammates might not let him hear the end of that one. Still he got the last laugh on the next pitch, sending the same offering over the fence.
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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That Roe slider might be the best pitch I’ve ever seen. Absolute insanity.