Every Monday we review the nastiest pitches from the previous weekends’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 First Half. Did we miss your favorite pitch? Send us a tweet next time @ThePitcherList and we’ll GIF it up + give you a shoutout here in the article.
Congrats to Corey Kluber’s Slider for winning Nastiest Pitching GIF of the Week! It was a tough battle with his very own Fastball and the breaking ball had just too much movement.
Dinelson Lamet’s Sliders – Lamet had himself a game over the weekend, fanning 12 Brewers hitters with just zero walks to his name. We couldn’t decide between these two deadly Sliders, so we elected to combine them into one GIF for your viewing pleasure. Talk about a deadly pitch.
Trevor Bauer’s Curveball – The Twins were no match for Bauer as he fanned eight and allowed two runs over seven frames. Minnesota has one of the best camera angles in the majors and gave us the perfect view of Bauer’s deadly hook as he placed it perfectly right off the outside corner to earn the whiff from Chris Gimenez. (Thanks to @raubaseball for the tip!)
Carlos Martinez’s Fastball – There’s plenty of talk about “rising” Fastballs and CarMart gave us the perfect example as he threw high heat to Adam Jones to end the third inning. There’s something so satisfying watching a pitcher rear back and give it 100% to blow a pitch past a hitter.
Max Scherzer’s Changeup – We debated multiple pitches from this outing, but ultimately the fading action Scherzer gets on this Changeup was too much to deny. It looks like a painted Fastball on the corner for ages until it tumbles off the plate, away from Lucas Duda’s bat. This is how it’s done.
Yu Darvish’s Curveball – Darvish is well known for surprising batters with his slow-Curveball, though this one came in at an astounding 64 mph that prevented Mitch Haniger from pulling the trigger. Here’s a bonus GIF of the pitch with a behind-the-plate view.
Jacob Faria’s Slider – Faria is establishing himself in the Rays’ rotation with a Slider that will continue to miss plenty of bats. Nick Castellanos learned the hard way how easy it is to go fishing in this 0-0 count.
Carl Edwards Jr.’s Fastball – We couldn’t decide if this was just the camera angle or if Edwards Jr. tossed a heater with crazy good horizontal movement. Either way, it’s an incredibly fun pitch to watch as Andrew McCutchen couldn’t resist chasing it off the plate. (Thanks to @TheBlogFines for the tip!)
GIF Of The Weekend
Which was your favorite pitch? Vote below and the winner will be featured in the GIF of the Week Contest.
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