We’ve seen incredible pitches over the first two months of the baseball season, and you’ve been voting every day for your favorite pitches. On Wednesday, we voted on 16 pitches. Yesterday, we helped reduce the field to just four pitches. Here are the results:
– Aroldis Chapman’s Fastball defeated Noah Syndergaard’s Fastball – Review
– Jose Berrios’ Curveball defeated Miles Mikolas’ Curveball – Review
– Adam Ottavino’s Slider defeated Justin Verlander’s Curveball – Review
– Lance McCullers’ Fastball defeated Jose Alvarado’s Fastball – Review
As we enter Round 3, here’s a recap of the rules:
- All GIFs were pulled from the six GIF of the Week competitions across the first six weeks of the baseball season.
- Every winner was granted an automatic bid, with the extra slots being hand selected by the staff across all Nastiest Pitches articles.
- There was one instance of a pitcher having two eligible pitches of the same type (Adam Ottavino’s slider) and we held a poll on Twitter to determine which pitch deserve entry.
- Votes will last until 12:00am EST the following morning, with the next round starting at 9:00am every morning and final round beginning on Monday morning.
- The great Michael Haas has created a gorgeous bracket of all 16 pitches above, with breaking balls and fastballs each receiving #1-#8 seeds.
Here are the matchups for Round #3:
#1 Aroldis Chapman’s Fastball vs. #6 Jose Berrios’ Curveball
#2 Lance McCullers’ Fastball vs. #4 Adam Ottavino’s Slider