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 First 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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Rick Porcello’s Changeup – The man who’s know for, er, winning the 2016 Cy Young Award is looking feisty this year in part thanks to increased changeup usage. The Boston righty has thrown it 15.6% of the time—nearly double last year’s frequency—and Texas’ Jurickson Profar got a firsthand look at why he’s done so on this fourth-inning whiff. Don’t look now, but Porcello’s 1.19 bbFIP outshines even his 2.14 ERA.
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Aroldis Chapman’s Fastball – The Yankees closer played puppeteer to Jason Kipnis‘ marionette, throwing four straight 100 mph laser beams in their ninth-inning meeting, including this one on the black and a 102 mph wild pitch up near the Indians second baseman’s head. Kipnis then went down on a check swing thanks to the indecision a 101 mph heater up out of the zone can cause.
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Sergio Romo’s Slider – The Rays right-hander skirted the bottom of the zone with this bending scythe to narrowly miss the back corner of the batter’s box against Toronto’s Dalton Pompey. The 35-year-old has struck out 17 in 11.2 innings this year.
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Bartolo Colon’s Two-Seamer – Colon featured movement like this all night, but on no other offering did he dumbfound a batter quite like he did Boston’s Jackie Bradley Jr. JBJ appears as though he’s bracing for impact then stares downward at the ball as it somehow transported into the catcher’s glove. Spooky action.
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Jose Berrios’ Changeup – Berrios didn’t quite have the weaponized curveball we’ve come to hope for from him, but he got by for six innings with the help of his change (five whiffs to the curve’s one) in the Twins’ 6-4 win over the White Sox. Above, Chicago’s Daniel Palka was left waving as the bottom dropped out of this fourth-inning offering.
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Seth Lugo’s Two-Seamer – The curveball-spin-rate god threw all of his pitches for at least a 60% strike rate and got plenty of bendy goodness on this fastball to catch the outside corner and set down Colorado’s Trevor Story looking. That was one of his three K’s in three innings of one-hit, no-run relief work.
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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