Every week we review the nastiest pitches from the previous week in glorious HD GIFs. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite pitch and check back Saturday to see if it will be in contention for the GIF of the First Half Contest. Week 10’s winner was Blake Treinen’s Fastball.
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.
This week’s pitches are led by mesmerizing benders from two Cleveland Indians starters followed by a nice group of spinning Fastballs. Check back next Saturday to see which GIF our readers picked as the nastiest pitch of the week.
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Mike Clevinger’s Slider – Clevinger was masterful on Thursday, fanning 11 and only walking one in seven innings. He used his hurricane slider here to get Jose Abreu waving and missing. The league may try and stifle Clevinger’s fun on the mound, but we can all still have fun watching him.
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Trevor Bauer’s Slider – Remember that cut on Bauer’s finger after that drone accident a couple years back? Yeah that was nasty, but this is definitely nastier. Bauer has amassed forty-eight strikeouts over his last four starts which is just silly.
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Lance McCullers’ Fastball – It sure looks like no one was quite sure where that 96 mile per hour cheese was going, but it managed to clip the corner low and in, locking up Mark Canha. McCullers struck out five in seven strong innings of work.
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Steven Wright’s knuckleball – Knuckleballs sure are fun to watch, aren’t they? Steven Wright looked solid against the Baltimore Orioles yesterday, pitching 6.2 innings of shutout ball with five strikeouts, including this knuckler that Trey Mancini had no chance against.
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Tayron Guerrero’s Fastball – The Statcast velocity leaderboard has had an Aroldis Chapman filter for a while now, and by all rights it should shift to the Chapman-Jordan Hicks filter so we can easily sort through the demigods among us. The top man standing if that were the case? Guerrero and his swaggering heater. The Marlins reliever picked up seven whiffs on 22 fastballs over two innings and regularly hit 100 mph with the pitch Sunday. Here, San Diego’s Freddy Galvis didn’t even offer at this bending laser.
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Kyle Gibson’s Fastball – Did someone leave the backdoor open? Justin Upton is always good for some strikeouts and this Gibson 94 MPH back door fastball was the perfect pitch to ring him up.
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Jordan Hicks‘ Two-Seamer – Hicks gassed it up to 102 mph at one point in this at-bat against Cincinnati’s Billy Hamilton, but he had the Reds outfielder cringing on this fastball before it caught the inside part of the plate.
Which was your favorite pitch? Vote below and the winner will be featured in the GIF of the First Half Contest.
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