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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Cristian Javier’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/flawedagonizingblueandgoldmackaw
Cristian Javier came in to relieve starter José Urquidy and he shined once again. Thanks to a 40% CSW on his slider, Javier struck out two over his 1.1 innings on Wednesday night. The slider to get Travis D’Arnaud swinging was his best pitch of the night.
Ryan Pressly’s Curveball
https://gfycat.com/tediousicyagouti
Despite his leadoff walk, Ryan Pressly pitched a relatively clean inning and escaped this one unscathed. Pressly had a 44% CSW overall through his 18 pitches, and his curveball actually had the lowest CSW of the bunch, but this one was easily the nastiest he threw in that seventh inning.
Kyle Wright’s Sinker
https://gfycat.com/necessarycompetentamericansaddlebred
Kyle Wright came into his eighth inning mop-up duty looking to keep the ship from sinking, and accomplished that feat while turning some heads along the way. His sinker had some crazy movement on it, and this backdoor sinker to strike out Martin Maldonado was the cream of the crop.
Kyle Wright’s Curveball
https://gfycat.com/cheaplazyatlanticbluetang
Between a 5/6 CSW on his sinker and a 33% CSW on his curveball, Wright’s 58% CSW overall was stellar. He struck out all three batters he faced on just 12 pitches and it was a fantastic inning from the young righty. Atlanta is going to need a lot more of this out of Wright if they want to take home the Commissioner’s Trophy.
José Urquidy’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/lightspeedyglowworm
Finally, José Urquidy’s changeup to strike out the first batter of the game was his nastiest pitch of the night. Urquidy has nasty stuff but this camera angle doesn’t do a great job of showing it off, especially on this changeup. It likely would have led this article had we gotten a better angle of the horizontal movement, but so be it.
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)