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 Second 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.
Congrats to Masahiro Tanaka’s Fastball for winning Nastiest Pitching GIF of the Week! That horizontal movement was way to good to deny it the crown.
Hunter Strickland’s Fastball – The Giants came into the Bronx and left with just one Win under their belt. Strickland was able to pick up the save in their lone victory and used his 98 mph heater to get through the pinstripe lineup. Brett Gardner didn’t have a chance as this pitch started well inside the strikezone before sailing well off the plate away. (Thanks to Redditor zeriloa for the tip!)
Hisashi Iwakuma’s Splitter – Iwakuma made a mark on one of the toughest offenses in the game, allowing just two earned runs in six frames of work. His Splitter was in its prime, creating difficult at-bats for Edwin Encarnacion.
Danny Duffy’s Slider – Duffy rebound from a tough outing to hold the Rangers to just one run on Friday evening. His was using his Slider religiously, and earned a beautiful strikeout against Rougned Odor with the breaker in the second inning.
Dylan Bundy’s Fastball – Bundy has brought rare excitement for an Orioles starting pitcher and struck out five Indian batters in his five innings on Friday night. This low Fastball he threw to Mike Napoli stole our hearts as it featured subtle movement back to the outside corner at 96 mph.
Carlos Villanueva’s Eephus – Who doesn’t enjoy a good slow ball? Werth seems to be making a habit of being the victim of these pitches, and whether you want to call this an Eephus or not is another story, but with this strike coming in around 55 mph, it’s hard not to crack a smile.
Kevin Gausman’s Split-Changeup – Gausman has been hot on the hill lately, collecting at least 6 Ks in each of his last five starts. He can thank his Split-Change for a handful of those punchouts, including whiffing Mike Napoli (again) to end the sixth.
Steve Cishek’s Fastball – After last year’s meltdown in Miami, Cishek has found himself in a groove in Seattle and earned his 23rd save of the season for the Mariners in Toronto this weekend. He started off the inning silencing Darwin Barney with this perfectly executed Fastball on the outside corner. (Thanks to Redditor analogboy56 for the tip!)
Yu Darvish’s Slider – It’s hard to leave off Darvish these days with his Slider looking as good as it’s ever been. There were a good amount to choose from across his Saturday performance, and this slide piece that fell away from Salvador Perez was our favorite. (Thanks to Redditor swissflamdrag for the tip!)
GIF Of The Weekend
Which was your favorite pitch? Vote below and the winner will be featured in the GIF of the Second Half contest.
[polldaddy poll=9482046]