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 and check back this weekend to see if it will be in contention for the GIF of the First Half. Did we miss your favorite pitch? Send us a tweet next time @ThePitcherList and we’ll GIF it up + give you a shoutout here in the article.
Clay Buchholz’s Curveball – It’s a breaking ball kind of day and this one may be the best of the bunch. Buchholz threw this hook that started belt high and over the outside corner that ended up hitting the dirt and in the opposite batter’s box. Crazy good movement. (Thanks to Redditor bengalmike17 for the tip!)
Mike Leake’s Slider – Leake has been much improved over the last two weeks and continued the trend against the Nationals on Thursday night. He froze Anthony Rendon with this excellent front-door Slider to earn a backwards K.
Jose Fernandez’s Curveball – It was JoFer being JoFer as he fanned 12 Rays batters over the evening. There were plenty of filthy pitches to choose from, with this breaking ball that travelled across the entire plate to Brad Miller earning top honors.
Gerrit Cole’s Curveball – On top of smacking a three-run HR, Cole allowed just one 1 ER across his 5 innings of work. His second to last out came from this luscious bender that just barely nipped the inside corner against Brandon Drury.
Lance McCullers‘ Curveball – It was a McCullers type of night as the young Astros flamethrower collected 10 strikeouts and 6 walks across five frames. Nearly all of his punchouts came on his excellent Knuckle-Curveball, including this one to Hyun Soo Kim that nearly swept him off his feet.
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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