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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Sergio Romo’s Slider – Each one of Tampa’s pitchers who appeared Sunday made a bid to grab a spot on this list, as Wilmer Font, Diego Castillo and Jose Alvarado all threw at least 98 mph with life, while Chaz Roe and Romo featured neck-breaking sliders. Here, Romo was chucking video game stuff to the Yankees’ Miguel Andujar while on his way to his third save.
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Blake Treinen’s Slider – The A’s closer was firing his monstrous 97 mph sinker with great success over two innings against the Angels, but this bit of brute trickery was too good to leave out, as he toyed with Luis Valbuena like a lion with a carcass.
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Lance McCullers’ Two-Seamer – Poor Abraham Almonte. He played the victim to McCullers’ darting, inside fastball for a pair of backward K’s on his first two at-bats—both calls he clearly disagreed with. Sure enough, he saw a pitch on the inner half with two strikes in his third AB vs. the Astros righty, but the bottom dropped out of it as it turned out to be McCullers’ signature knuckle curve. The ride on the first of these strikeout pitches (above) was just unfair, though.
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Chaz Roe’s Slider – If baseball players had superhero parallels, then Roe would be Dr. Strange, as he seems to manipulate the forces of the natural universe with his breaking stuff. New York’s Aaron Judge fell to the sorcery on this 2-1 slide peice.
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Matt Strahm’s Fastball – Strahm was the opener for San Diego’s bullpen day, and he picked up 10 whiffs and five strikeouts on 42 pitches. He brought his four-seamer to Freddie Free’s Dance Factory and dialed it up to 97 for the swinging strikeout.
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Matt Belisle’s Slider – The Twins reliever drove a spike into the ground near Jose Ramirez’s back foot, inducing a spectacular whiff and turning the second baseman into a heaping wreck. Bugs Bunny would be proud.
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Trevor Richards‘ Changeup – Not much went right for Richards against the Orioles over his 3.1 innings, but he can at least hang his hat on this nasty offspeed offering to Adam Jones.
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Adam Ottavino’s Slider – Ottavino unleashed his lab-grown quantum particle on the Rangers once again, burying this one inside to Ronald Guzman for a familiar sight: a flailing hitter.
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A.J. Minter’s Fastball – The Atlanta reliever roasted San Diego’s Travis Jankowski with 99 at the knees to pick up the first of his two strikeouts against the Padres.
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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