Every morning, the We Love Baseball crew reviews the Nastiest Pitches from the previous day’s games in glorious high-definition GIFs. We want to bring you the highest caliber of nastiness possible, so if you see a nasty pitch, please tell us about it. You can tweet @PitcherList to let us know and we’ll give you a shout-out here in the article if your tip makes the cut.
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Peter Fairbanks’ Fastball
https://gfycat.com/consciousplainkitty
Peter Fairbanks came in as part of the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen on Friday night in order to keep the game at 1-1. Fairbanks was lights out in his relief appearance going two shutout innings allowing one hit and striking out three Yankees. Here was probably his biggest out of the game, striking out MLB’s homerun leader Luke Voit on an upstairs fastball dialing it up to 100 miles per hour to strand two runners on and prevent the Yankees from gaining the lead.
Gerrit Cole’s Fastball
https://gfycat.com/madaltruisticearwig
Going on three days rest for the first time in his career, Gerrit Cole gave the Yankees everything they could have asked for allowing only one run and one hit in 5.1 innings along with 9 strikeouts, ideally setting up the Yankees to win this game. In the first inning, Cole worked himself into a jam with one hit batter, and two walks loading the bases with the Rays poised to strike early. However, Cole kept the game scoreless with a 97 mile per hour fastball painted at the bottom of the order on a 3-2 count to catch Joey Wendle looking, and get him out of the jam, setting up his dominant outing.
Zack Britton’s Sinker
https://gfycat.com/deadgraciousgallowaycow
Once Gerrit Cole was taken out of the game, Aaron Boone wasted no time getting the ball to his big backend relievers bringing Zack Britton into the game in the 6th to hold the game at 1-1. Britton would do just that striking out two in his scoreless 1.1 of relief. Here we see a nasty sinker down getting Joey Wendle to swing overtop, a huge out in a potential Tampa Bay rally.
Diego Castillo’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/regalesteemedamethystinepython
Diego Castillo came on in relief for Tampa Bay in the 8th and 9th innings and was filthy with four strikeouts in two hitless innings keeping the game at 1-1 and then preserving the Tampa Bay 2-1 lead in the 9th. On this strikeout, Castillo catches pinch hitter Mike Ford looking at a perfectly spotted slider down in the zone very much fooling Ford as he thought it was ball 4. No Ford….it was a strike painted down at the knees, setting up Castillo’s dominant outing.