Every morning we review the nastiest pitches from the previous day’s games in glorious HD GIFs. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite pitch and check back this weekend to see if it will be in contention for the GIF of the First Half Contest. 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.
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Trevor Bauer’s Curveball – Bauer continued his hot start to the season against the hapless Tigers, striking out seven in seven strong innings. He fired off plenty of nasty pitches, including this big, loopy curveball that future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera took an almighty swing (and a miss) at.
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Nick Tropeano’s Fastball – Nick Tropeano is back, having not pitched in a big league game since August of 2016. Who can tell after he carved up Kansas City hitters for six strikeouts in 6 2/3 scoreless innings. He had life on all of his pitches, especially his two-seam fastball which ran all the way in on Jorge Soler, who watched helplessly as he was rung up.
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Jose Berrios’ Curveball – Berrios absolutely shoved on Thursday, striking out 11 in seven shutout innings against the White Sox. Check out this first inning wipeout slider to slugger Jose Abreu, who was caught chasing wildly out of the strike zone.
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Sonny Gray’s Curveball – Gray did not have the best outing against the Red Sox on Thursday, but he did manage a handful of strikeouts. One of them was this iceberg that he created out of Brock Holt, freezing him with a backdoor curveball that beautifully paints the corner.
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Blake Parker’s Splitter – Parker may have lost his grip on the closer role in LA, but he didn’t lose his grip on this sharp, late-breaking split-finger that dove down and away from the flailing reach of Alcides Escobar at the last minute.
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Kyle Hendricks‘ Changeup – Gregory Polanco has been red-hot this year, but he was no match for this wicked changeup from Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks. The pitch started out middle away and quickly dove just out of the strike zone and away from Polanco’s reach. Nasty.
GIF Of The Night
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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