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 Second 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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David Robertson’s Curveball – Robertson roasted Toronto’s Yangervis Solarte to end this at-bat, throwing three straight knuckle curves. He crumpled him with the hook seen above, put one in the dirt, then froze him with a buckler for strike three.
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Jacob Nix’s Curveball – The Padres starter tossed some beautiful curves against the Rangers, bringing Robinson Chirinos to a knee and nearly causing Jurickson Profar to tear a muscle on this prodigious whiff.
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Dellin Betances‘ Curveball – Poor Yangervis. First Robertson demoralized him, then Betances hooked him on this eighth-inning whiff. For his part, Betances took the L, having given up a pair of runs in the inning—but he at least saved some face with this swing-and-miss.
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Ken Giles‘ Fastball – All right—enough of the bendy stuff. Time for some power. Giles punched it up to 100 mph with life to overpower Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez. The Jays closer has a 1.50 ERA over his last seven appearances with four saves.
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Luis Castillo’s Fastball – Castillo suffered from an odd lack of whiffability against the Cubs, picking up just five swings-and-misses. Still, his two-seamer looked fantastic against Ben Zobrist on this 97 mph looking strike.
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Adam Ottavino’s Cutter – Otto gave up a run while acting as the bridge to closer Wade Davis, but he put down Evan Longoria with some silly movement on this 88 mph cutter.
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Jordan Hicks’s Sinker – Even though the Cardinals rookie is known for regularly throwing 100-plus, this 104 mph fastball almost caused me to spit-take, as it somehow looks too fast for even the camera to fully pick up, never mind Yasiel Puig’s bat. Yikes.
GIF of the Night
Which was your favorite pitch? Vote below, and the winner will be featured in the GIF of the Second Half Contest.
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