Every week we review the nastiest pitches from the previous week in glorious HD GIFs. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite pitch and check back Saturday to see if it will be in contention for the GIF of the First Half Contest. Week 9’s winner was Mike Clevinger’s Slider.
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.
This week’s pitches include a bevy of breaking balls including a nice mix of ridiculously sharp breaking pitches mixed with a few seemingly physics-defying Fastballs. Pick one and check back next Saturday to see which pitch carried the week.
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Jose Berrios’ Curveball – Berrios tossed a complete game with ten strikeouts against the White Sox on Thursday. His curveball was electric as usual, here sweeping across the zone to fan Jose Abreu. Nasty.
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Tanner Roark’s Fastball- This Two-Seam Fastball from Tanner Roark starts on the inside edge and darts towards the middle of the plate to strikeout Brad Miller. Roark pitched six innings of two-run ball on his way to his third win of the season in this one.
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Corey Kluber’s Fastball – Kluber struck out seven across seven strong innings on Tuesday, another typical outing for the Klu-Bot. Here he manages to use that wicked two-seam movement to back Ji-Man Choi off the plate for strike two.
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Nick Tropeano’s Splitter – While Trop collected five strikeouts in 4.2 innings, he also allowed five earned runs to the Kansas City Royals of all teams. One of those strikeouts came with this nice splitter that sent Alex Gordon golfing.
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Blake Treinen’s Fastball – Not to be outdone, Treinen touched 99 himself—but with the deadliest movement so far. There’s a reason the Pitching Ninja has dubbed him “The Witch,” and here’s a great example of it. The A’s closer dropped Kansas City’s Jorge Soler with this filth to wrap up Oakland’s 5-1 win.
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Mike Foltynewicz’s Slider – Folty turned to his slider to get Bryce Harper swinging for his 11th strikeout and finish his complete game two-hitter. But this earlier iteration was even more impressive as its sweeping action ate up the Washington outfielder in the fourth.
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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