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 First 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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Trevor Bauer’s Curveball – The Cleveland starter featured a beautiful knuckle curve against the Yankees on his way to seven K’s in seven innings Sunday. Here, Miguel Andujar creates a nice breeze at Progressive Field as this hook drops from the sky. Admittedly, this is more of a collective entry, as you could take your pick between several offerings and we wouldn’t argue with you—as our Michael Augustine showed in this supercut.
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Masahiro Tanaka’s Splitter – Tanaka brought his famous splitter to his showdown with Bauer and didn’t disappoint, burying this one inside to induce a whiff from Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez.
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Ray Black’s Fastball – The Giants reliever released pure venom on Oakland’s Nick Martini, inducing a tremendous whiff on this rising heat for his second strikeout of the day.
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Justin Verlander’s Curveball – This Verlander buckler gave Jose Iglesias the phantom jitters, as the Detroit shortstop stumbled back from the Fudd to the Ruckers at Minute Maid Park.
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Lou Trivino’s Two-Seamer – Trivino continues to make noise out of the Oakland bullpen, setting up the next pitcher in this roundup with extreme prejudice toward opponents. Here, Chase d’Arnaud found himself on the wrong end of a GIF for the second day in a row.
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Blake Treinen’s Sinker – The Giants had to run the Trivino-Treinen gauntlet for the second consecutive game, once again to no avail. Though Andrew McCutchen was the one batter of four Treinen didn’t strike out swinging, the San Francisco outfielder didn’t get off easy as he had to deal with this bit of nastiness.
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Miles Mikolas‘ Curveball – Though this would be his final inning on a day that saw him throw an inefficient 85 pitches in four frames, Mikolas showed off one of the weapons that have carried him to an All-Star berth in his first season back from Japan. Tucker Barnhart didn’t make for a bad bit of framing, either, as the Cincinnati catcher accentuated things by taking an involuntary knee.
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Clayton Kershaw’s Curveball – The Angels’ Justin Upton may not agree, but all feels right in the world when one of the sport’s purest facets can send us into the All-Star break: a 12-to-6 teardrop from one Mr. Clayton Kershaw. (Oh, and this rage-inducing slider to Jefry Marte.)
See you in the second half!
GIF of the Night
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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