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 Sinker – Treinen cares not for the puny mortal baubles you call wooden bats. (Cue guttural evil laughter.) They are but twigs in the face of his celestial flight. Put more simply: The A’s closer took out Toronto’s Kevin Pillar on this vicious offering on his way to his ninth save.
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Jakob Junis‘ Slider – The Royals starter buried this dive-bombing slider down and in to leave the Yankees’ Neil Walker waving in the top of the fourth inning. Junis picked up eight whiffs on the pitch, which helped him limit New York to two runs in 5.1 frames.
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Kyle Gibson’s Two-Seamer – The 30-year-old’s fastball wagged its tail at 95 mph to leave Milwaukee’s Domingo Santana swinging from his heels on this second-inning offering. It may have been the only whiff Gibson picked up with the pitch on the night, but it was still nasty.
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Chris Devenski’s Changeup – The Astros reliever garnered four swings and misses on 11 changeups thrown, and this one was a great example of its effectiveness as he pulled the string on Cleveland’s Michael Brantley.
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Zack Godley’s Curveball – Godley showed off his wicked hook early Friday, as this first-inning pitch to the Mets’ Jay Bruce had the right fielder flailing at air. The Diamondbacks’ starter picked up six K’s in six innings but yielded four walks and ran into Jacob deGrom’s Mets in a 3-1 loss.
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Steven Wright’s Knuckleball – Wright kept his knuckler fluttering well enough to complete 4.1 innings of relief after Red Sox starter Drew Pomeranz lasted just four frames and gave up seven hits. Here, Wright got some sweet movement to throw off Trey Mancini.
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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Love this page!! I don’t know how you define what a pitch is but Blake Treinen’s “sinker” is only a sinker because it moved down a little. There is no way that a traditionally thrown sinker goes 98 MPH.