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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Sonny Gray’s Sinker
https://gfycat.com/happynippyjabiru
For whatever reason, we weren’t lucky enough to have slo-mo shots of many of these pitches. Usually, there’s a solid 50%, but that just wasn’t the case on Wednesday. Oh, well. We at least got some filthy pitches with solid camera angles and this nasty sinker from Sonny Gray was among the best I’ve seen in recent weeks.
Aaron Loup’s Curveball
https://gfycat.com/entiresilkybarnacle
I really wish we had a better camera angle of this pitch so that we could see just how much horizontal movement this nasty curveball from Aaron Loup really got. This pitch started in Queens and very nearly ended up in Brooklyn.
Taijuan Walker’s Sinker
https://gfycat.com/aggravatingsaltyairedaleterrier
Taijuan Walker, not Stacy’s mom, had it going on last night. This is the first of two pitches we’ll see from him, a sinker that was so nasty even the batter agreed that it was filthy.
Max Scherzer’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/madqualifiedleveret
The only pitch that didn’t come from either Mets/Marlins, Reds/White Sox, or Blue Jays/Yankees (I swear I watched more than these three games), this nasty changeup from Max Scherzer dropped right out of the zone and earned an off-balance whiff from Victor Caratini.
José Berríos‘ Curveball
https://gfycat.com/acidicquarterlydeer
Like Taijuan Walker, we also have two pitches for you from José Berríos. This curveball defies the laws of gravity to bend its’ way through the zone, painting the corner and eliciting a check swing from Kyle Higashioka.
Jonathan Loáisiga’s Sinker
https://gfycat.com/defiantancienthusky
George Springer immediately knew that he made a mistake letting this 99 MPH backdoor sinker get past him without a fight. It’s one thing to be chucking it 95 MPH like Taijuan Walker, but it’s a whole different ballgame when it’s nearly triple digits.
Michael Kopech’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/nippydangerousaoudad
This slider from Michael Kopech does start on the outside part of the plate initially, but look how far away from the zone it ends up. Kopech pitched three solid innings of relief on Wednesday night and he’s going to be a terror coming out of the bullpen in the postseason.
José Berríos‘ Sinker
https://gfycat.com/angelictameasiaticgreaterfreshwaterclam
Here’s a sinker that starts inside for a change and nearly hits Aaron Judge just under the belt. Like the Loáisiga pitch, this one gets a lot of late, sharp break. It’s very cool seeing how different the same pitch is thrown by different pitchers.
Taijuan Walker’s Splitter
https://gfycat.com/ancientbriefhummingbird
The second pitch from Taijuan Walker is this devastating splitter that starts chest-high and ends up down by the ankles. Yeah, I’d be swinging over that 100 times out of 100.
Clay Holmes‘ Sinker
https://gfycat.com/thisbaggydromaeosaur
Today’s final pitch is, of course, a sinker, and it’s Clay Holmes‘ demon sinker that gets a ton of vertical drop along with the horizontal movement. It’s similar to Blake Treinen’s sinker, just with more drop and less break. Just another reminder that hitting a baseball is incredibly hard.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)