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.
Congrats to Noe Ramirez’s Curveball for winning GIF of the Week! Always fun to watch MLB hitters bail on pitches that fall into the strikezone.
Matt Shoemaker’s Split-Changeup – The Shoemaker parade is still afloat as Shoe fanned eleven Indians over the weekend. His velocity is up and his Split-Change is super pretty, like this one that fanned Rajai Davis in the sixth.
Yordano Ventura’s Curveball – It was easily the best start of the season for Ventura on Sunday, striking out an even ten and allowing just one run in seven frames. He relied heavily on his hook to rack up the Ks, and featured unreal late bite as he punched out Brett Lawrie to close out the fourth.
Aaron Sanchez’s Fastball – While it was a difficult day on the hill for Sanchez, he was looking like his nasty self early on. He’s known for the horizontal movement on his heater, and we could watch this one coming in at 97mph to Matt Wieters over and over. (Thanks to Redditor iamlowsound for the tip!)
Matt Harvey’s Slider – Harvey has looked like the ace of old in his last two weeks for the Mets, and continued the trend against the Brew Crew. He got off to a great start, using his Slider to putaway his first batter of the game in Jonathan Villar.
Johnny Cueto’s Changeup – Cueto was given the task to match up against Kershaw on Friday evening, and did his part by allowing just two runs to the Dodgers over eight innings. He threw many excellent pitches, but this Changeup with some serious fading action was too good to pass on.
Clayton Kershaw’s Curveball – It was a typical Kershaw evening with 13 Ks and zero walks as he cruised through eight frames against the Giants. His hook took the spotlight once again, whiffing Jarrett Parker on a fantastic Curveball down and away.
Pat Venditte’s Slider – It may be important to label this as Venditte’s “right-handed Slider”, but whatever you call it, there is no denying its filth. Jonathan Schoop didn’t have a chance as this slide piece zoomed back across the plate. (Thanks to @ChiCityBrian for the tip!)
Justin Verlander’s Changeup – Verlander has been hotter in the past month than the woman he’s engaged to and showed no signs of slowing down against the Yankees over the weekend. Watch as he sent Didi Gregorius back to the dugout with this beautiful Changeup that never stopped falling off the plate.
Jose Fernandez’s Curveball – Name it a Slider if you like (we follow Pitchf/x’s label), but at least we can both agree that watching Jean Segura bail out of the way of this breaking ball is immensely entertaining. (Thanks to Redditor destinybond 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 First Half contest.
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