Every morning, the We Love Baseball crew reviews the Nastiest Pitches from the previous day’s games. If you see something you think should be included here be sure to tweet @PitcherList to let us know. Or, if you’re a PL+ Member and part of our Discord, shout it out in the Nastiest Pitches channel.
Aroldis Chapman’s Splitter
Chapman still throws so hard that a splitter anywhere near the zone will frequently get results like this. It gets 0th (is that a thing?) percentile Total Break. Chapman has always struggled with control, but I was blown away to see he has a 23.9% BB%! It must be maddening for a Pirates fan to watch him.
Carlos Rodón’s Changeup
Rodón only throws his changeup 6% of the time, but today it generated 7 whiffs. Recently Eno Sarris mentioned Rodón has a good changeup, but he doesn’t throw it much because he can’t command it. I guess he had good feel for it today. He also had several 97-98 mph fastballs.
Corbin Burnes‘ Cutter
Burnes has an excellent cutter. It has 91st percentile CS%, and, when guys do swing at it, they pound it into the ground. It has 84th percentile GB%. He throws it 45% of the time at an average of 95.0 mph. It also has 98th percentile iVB.
Corbin Burnes‘ Sinker
Burnes doesn’t throw his sinker much, but this one really ties Julio Rodríguez up. It is perfectly placed and gets more horizontal movement than usual. It’s good at generating groundballs and has 85th percentile ICR.
José Soriano’s Knuckle Curve
It’s not often you see a guy swing on a pitch that hits him, but this is what happens here. It’s also not often that a pitcher has a 98 mph sinker (that is frequently over 100 mph) that is his second most-used pitch behind a curveball. Soriano has great stuff. It’s just a matter of control.
Hunter Greene’s Fastball
Causing a swing like that from Ohtani is all you need to know about that fastball. 99 mph and perfectly placed. Greene struggles with control, but his fastball does have 84th percentile Swinging Strike%.
Hunter Greene’s Splitter
This splitter disappears for Heyward. Across the board, Greene’s splitter has been bad for Greene, but this is a nasty one.
Jordan Hicks‘ Sinker1
I’m not sure what this pitch from Hicks was. It was classified as a sinker, but it was about 5 mph slower than usual and gets a ton of movement. Regardless of what it was, it was effective.
Jordan Hicks‘ Sinker2
Ordinarily, we don’t like to double up on pitch types from the same guy, but how could I not include this sinker from Hicks also? I’m not sure which one I prefer. What do you think?
A.J. Puk’s Sweeper
I’m unsure why Puk’s sweeper has had such little success this year. It generates a lot of groundballs, but that’s it. He even does a good job keeping it low (87th percentile loLoc%). I guess this is why I’m not a pitching coach.
Photos courtesy of Icon Sportswire
Adapted by Kurt Wasemiller (@KUWasemiller on Twitter / @kurt_player02 on Instagram