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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Blake Treinen’s Fastball – Location, location, location. While pitchers can often get away with 97 mile per hour two-seamers wherever the heck they want, Treinen’s pitch to Dan Vogelbach last night just so happened to catch the low and outside corner perfectly. That’s just gravy.
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Trevor Bauer’s Slider – Bauer struck out six in six shutout innings on Tuesday. His slider has been on point all season, and this delivery to Willson Contreras was perfect. It starts out looking like a strike and before Contreras can hold up, poof, it’s gone.
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Kirby Yates‘ Splitter – Yates threw a handful of nasty split-fingers on Tuesday, none filthier than this 87 mile per hour pitch with heavy drop that got Bryce Harper swinging out of his shoes.
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Chris Sale’s Slider – Sale struck out nine in 7 2/3 innings of work on Tuesday. His hurricane slider was out in full-force, here getting Rays catcher Jesus Sucre swinging wildly, to no avail.
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Trevor Cahill’s Changeup – Cahill may have only struck out three on Tuesday, but he held the Mariners in check through 7 2/3 strong innings. This changeup in particular absolutely baffled Guillermo Heredia, who was expecting a pitch right down the middle before this beauty dove away from him and buried itself in the corner down and in. Nasty.
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Garrett Richards‘ Slider – For pitching purists, particularly those who love breaking balls, Richards has been must watch baseball this season. His slider has been one of the nastiest pitches in all of baseball this year, as evidenced by this ridiculous 89 mile per hour dive bomb to poor Devon Travis.
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Buck Farmer’s Changeup – Farmer brings the heat, with 95+ mile per hour fastballs and this hard but runny 88 mile per hour changeup. Here he was able to locate it perfectly at the bottom of the zone, where Brian Dozier wisely laid off.
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Gerrit Cole’s Slider – Cole struck out eight in six innings of work on Tuesday. His slider has been filth all year, and while this pitch in particular only grazed a small portion of the strike zone, it was enough to get Kelby Tomlinson to bite.
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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