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.
As a bonus for PL+ members, let us know about a pitch on the PL+ Discord in the Nasty Pitches Channel, and if your suggestion is included the next day, you’ll be entered into a weekly drawing for a free T-shirt!
Paul Sewald’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/snarlingfearlessdunnart
Who? Yeah, I haven’t heard of Paul Sewald either. Apparently he’s pitched in parts of five different seasons, racking up 166.2 IP over the course of his career. News to me. But boy am I glad he showed up on my radar, cause look at this thing! He has a 30.6% CSW with the slider this season (dope), a 35.8% overall CSW (doper), and a career best 1.86 ERA in 19.1 innings (DOPEST). He seems like the type of bullpen arm a contender could make a deadline deal for, and you heard it here first (unless someone else said it first, in which case you heard it here second).
Vladimir Gutiérrez’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/lightunfitbrahmanbull
Vladimir Gutiérrez throws some legitimately nasty stuff. His breakers are sharp with good velocity separation, and this changeup also gets a ton of movement. The changeup is easily his worst pitch (8.8% CSW), but I like what I see out of him more and more every time I watch him pitch. There could be something here.
Shohei Ohtani’s Splitter
https://gfycat.com/kindheartedsophisticatedcats
Shohei Ohtani did not have his best stuff on Wednesday night, but this splitter to strike out Rougned Odor with the bases loaded was still a patented nasty Ohtani split piece.
Jake Cousins‘ Slider
https://gfycat.com/safedelightfulgallowaycow
Since making his big league debut last week, Jake Cousins has done nothing but deal in his four innings of work. His main offering, the slider, has been used over 50% of the time with a whopping 58.1% CSW so far. Yeah yeah yeah, small sample size, but you can’t deny that the pitch is filthy and should be able to miss plenty of at bats. Looks like the reliever farm up in Milwaukee unearthed yet another gem.
Aaron Nola’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/helpfulaptdegus
Aaron Nola had himself quite the interesting outing on Wednesday. Should we start with the good or the bad first? The bad news? Fine. He gave up seven earned runs over 4.2 innings and likely torpedoed your ratios if he’s on one of your rosters. The good news? 11 Ks, including this nasty changeup to get Starling Marte. We’ll take what we can get I guess.
Garrett Crochet’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/warpedsoggylice
Similar to Jake Rogers‘ slider, this one from Garrett Crochet explodes out of his hand and spins straight for the dirt. Young Alex Kirilloff couldn’t help but whiff at this one.
Bailey Ober’s Curveball
https://gfycat.com/enlightenedincompletehawk
The Athletic’s Eno Sarris was hyping up Bailey Ober a bit on Monday’s Rates & Barrels podcast, so naturally I had to see what the hype was all about. I wasn’t super impressed with what I saw, but that curveball is legit. He had a 47% CSW with the pitch on Wednesday night compared to a 23% CSW with everything else. I added him in one of my deeper leagues so we’ll see where this ride takes us.
Drew Rasmussen’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/wigglyadolescentgrub
Drew Rasmussen struck out the hottest hitter in the world with this nasty slider with a ton of late drop. The horizontal movement isn’t there like the Crochet pitch, but it still fooled Kyle Schwarber into taking a very weak one-handed hack at it.
Dylan Cease’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/cheeryseveralibizanhound
The rivalry between the Twins and White Sox is heating up after Josh Donaldson’s antics the other day. Dylan Cease got a bit of payback with this nasty slider that made Donaldson look helpless.
https://twitter.com/StickyCheck/status/1410441681376264200?s=20
What’s that they say about karma?
Miguel Sánchez’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/meekbogusalbacoretuna
Miguel Sánchez averaged 94.5 MPH with his fastball and 90.5 MPH with his changeup last night. Everything I’ve been taught tells me that a four MPH velocity separation is not nearly enough to be effective, yet he carred a 40.7% CSW with those two pitches in his 2.1 innings of work. The difference maker has to be that Airbender-esque movement on the changeup, and I’m curious to see how well this will work for him over the course of the season.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)