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!
Christian Javier’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/dizzyraggedbarasingha
Christian Javier returned from the alternate sight and flashed the stuff that made him in the Rookie of the Year conversation in 2020, with 9 strikeouts in 5 shutout innings. There were multiple strikeouts that could have made this article, but this changeup away to Shohei Ohtani had him flailing and missing, making Ohtani look foolish.
Walker Buehler’s Fastball
https://gfycat.com/equaladvancedaracari
Walker Buehler continued his great start to 2021 and even added some ticks to his fastball from his previous start in his no-decision against the rival Padres. Buehler ended up striking out 9 batters in his 7 innings of work, including this high 97 mile per hour fastball right past Trent Grisham.
Aroldis Chapman’s Splitter
https://gfycat.com/dangerousevencatfish
Aroldis Chapman has been absolutely filthy this year, striking out 16 in his 6 innings of work. He continued this dominant start to the season striking out 3 to pick up the save over Cleveland on Thursday. Much of the success this year has to do with the addition of his splitter, which we see here dropping down to strike out Roberto Perez swinging.
Justin Dunn’s Curveball
https://gfycat.com/lankydecisivekakapo
This curveball was one of five strikeouts for Justin Dunn on Thursday, continuing his quietly nice start to the season. When you can get one of the hottest hitters in the league in J.D. Martinez looking like that, you deserve to end up on this list, causing him to chase the curveball away.
Kendall Graveman’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/neglectedequatorialglowworm
Anytime you can get a batter to swing and miss at a pitch that ends up hitting them, you get a spot on this list. That is exactly what Kendall Graveman did here to preserve the tie game, bearing a slider inside to Marwin Gonzalez that ended up hitting him after he swung right through it.
Jonathan Loaisiga’s Changeup
https://gfycat.com/gleefulspectacularfrilledlizard
Jonathan Loaisiga has always had flashes of great stuff and in 2021 he has quickly risen up the pecking order in the Yankee bullpen, coming on on Thursday in the 7th against the top of the Cleveland order and preserving a 5-3 lead. He ended his outing with this changeup to Eddie Rosario, causing him to wave right through it.
Nick Pivetta’s Slider
https://gfycat.com/vibrantelderlykodiakbear
Nick Pivetta carried a no-hitter into the 6th inning on Thursday and showed flashes of the stuff which got fantasy managers so excited about him in the past. Here he spots a slider perfectly on the inside corner to catch Taylor Trammel looking and ended with a strikeout hop towards the dugout (this time actually on strike 3 and not a ball).
Gregory Santos‘ Slider
https://gfycat.com/innocentgeneralgordonsetter
Gregory Santos made his MLB debut on Thursday in relief and was incredibly sharp striking out 2 in his inning of relief. His first was on a nice slider, but his second as seen here was on an even nastier one bearing in on Jazz Chisholm and causing him to swing right through it. (h/t to PL+ member Ben Murillo)
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)
I know you typically look to your subscribers as the main outside source for The Nastiness, but I thought I’d go ahead and drop this here anyway. Luetge vs. The Franimal, 4/23, Yankees vs. Cleveland, bottom of the fifth, the 1-2 curve was absolutely insane. the painted FB in the inside corner set it up beautifully… keep an eye out for sick stuff from Luetge.
Hey DB – great call, that’s a filthy pitch. I’ll add Luetge to my list of guys to watch for. If you’re on Twitter, feel free to tweet any nasty pitch suggestions to either me (@BenBrownPL) or @PitcherList. We’ll give you a shoutout if we use it!
which account would make more sense to @ in the “nastiest pitch” conversation?
In my leagues, I’ve kind of been known as relief-pitcher whisperer/waiver-wire warrior, and I’d love for you guys to feature more unknown guys that can bring it in a big way.
Not that you do a bad job now, I LOVE this site and check it first every morning, but mining minor relief arms has been kind of my calling card in FBB, and I find many, many nasty pitches go without notice until the rest of the FBB community has picked up on them, and while I love watching Aces do their thing, as an FBB player, I’d rather see more of under-represented pitches getting their due attention.
A second, Nastiest Unaknowleged Pitches of the Day might be too much to ask, but maybe a weekly feature? Maybe during days where many teams aren’t playing?
Just a thought.
We definitely try our best to find pitches from players who aren’t exactly “mainstream”, but it’s hard. Codi Heuer was that guy for me last year, and Chris Rodriguez has been the guy so far this year. Most of our daily search focuses on guys we know who throw nasty stuff – the starters we all know (deGrom, Bieber, etc.), the nasty relievers (Edwin Diaz, Devin Williams, Miguel Castro, etc.), and then we sometimes get tipped off to someone unknown or stumble across one here and there. It’s impossible for us to watch every pitch of every game, so we really do rely on submissions for those unknown guys.
I’d be curious to know who you think we’re overlooking, we’d love to highlight those underrepresented guys if we can. And feel free to @ me on Twitter with any suggestions, @BenBrownPL. I’m the Nastiest Pitches manager and if you ping me on a pitch I’ll make sure whoever is on duty that night ends up seeing it.