We’ve seen incredible pitches across the baseball season, and you’ve been voting every day for your favorite pitches. We held the Nastiest Pitching GIFs of the First Quarter tournament eight weeks ago, and it’s time to crown another king of pitching GIFs with the Nastiest Pitching GIF of the Second Quarter. Sixteen pitches will enter, who will win?
Here are the rules:
- All GIFs were pulled from the six GIF of the Week competitions across weeks seven through twelve 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 were two instances of a pitcher having two eligible pitches of the same type (Blake Treinen and Lance McCullers) and we held a vote inside our Pitcher List Community Discord Server to determine each pitcher’s champion for the tournament.
- 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 excellent Michael Haas has created a gorgeous bracket of all 16 pitches, with secondary pitches and fastballs each receiving #1-#8 seeds.
Round 1’s Results:
- Blake Treinen’s Fastball defeated Lance McCullers’ Fastball
- Noah Syndergaard’s Fastball defeated Nick Pivetta’s Fastball
- Fernando Rodney’s Fastball defeated Jordan Hicks‘ Fastball
- James Paxton’s Fastball defeated Tanner Roark’s Fastball
- Chris Sale’s Slider defeated Yu Darvish’s Slider
- Steven Wright’s Knuckleball defeated Jonathan Loaisiga’s Changeup
- Trevor Bauer’s Slider defeated Mike Foltynewicz’s Slider
- David Robertson’s Curveball defeated Craig Kimbrel’s Curveball
Here are the matchups for Round #2:
Fastballs
Blake Treinen’s Fastball vs. Noah Syndergaard’s Fastball
James Paxton’s Fastball vs. Fernando Rodney’s Fastball
Secondary Pitches
Chris Sale’s Slider vs. David Robertson’s Curveball
Steven Wright’s Knuckleball vs. Trevor Bauer’s Slider
