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 6’s winner was Miles Mikolas‘ Curveball.
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 an array of hard breaking fastballs with some great sliders mixed in. Pick one and check back next Saturday to see which pitch carried the week.
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Adam Ottavino’s Fastball – Look at that. It’s an Ottavino pitch that isn’t a slider! This fastball is just as nasty. 96 MPH, great movement, right on the corner. This dude is a wizard with a baseball.
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Nick Pivetta’s Fastball – Straight up, 96 mile per hour fastballs should not move like this. Pivetta really brought it on Wednesday, striking out 11 in seven strong innings. This heater to Chance Sisco had no ‘chance’ of getting hit.
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Noah Syndergaard’s Fastball – If I could just upload every single pitch of Syndergaard’s, I would. This pitch looked and moved exactly like your typical hard changeup, with the announce even (incorrectly) calling it a change at first glance. The problem? It was freakin’ 98 miles per hour. Holy Moly.
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Adam Ottavino’s Slider – This guy really just gives us easy filler for these write-ups. It’s a rare night when Ottavino doesn’t break out a nasty slider like this one to make hitters like Christian Villanueva looks just plain silly.
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Chaz Roe’s Slider – Is Roe the best pitcher on this list? Of course not. He’s a journeyman reliever with a career 3.78 FIP. But on a day when pitches from Luis Severino, Aaron Nola, Luis Castillo and Corey Kluber were left on our cutting room floor, Roe’s slider stood out. Again. It’s one of the beautiful accidents of our universe, and we should all just sit back and enjoy it together—even if Baltimore catcher Caleb Joseph didn’t.
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Alex Cobb’s Splitter – It’s not often we lead this column off with Alex Cobb, but it’s also not all that often that Cobb’s splitter, nicknamed the thing, makes an appearance quite like this one. Woof.
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Chris Sale’s Slider – The wiry lefty struck out 15 Blue Jays over nine innings and induced 16 whiffs on his slider alone (26 overall) Friday. Anthony Alford added to that tally and had trouble staying upright on this fourth-inning back-footer.
GIF Of The Week
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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