This one hits a bit differently! Fans of our previously daily nastiest pitches articles will be familiar with the content in this new weekly article that covers all the need-to-know highlights of baseball from the past week in GIF form. From cool moments, the nastiest pitches, and the moments you’d want to forget, our GIFs of the week are sure to entertain.
Defensive Wizardry
Jake Meyers Puts His Body on the Line
Jake Meyers started off his week with a bang as the Astros’ outfielder went full speed into the American Family Field fence. He made the grab and held on to save Cristian Javier and the Houston Astros at least one run and end the inning.
Haggerty Gets Air
With Ty France out of the lineup due to a sore wrist, Sam Haggerty drew the start at first base. Not only did he provide a two-run double, but the utility man made an outstanding play at first going up to get the errant throw and making the tag behind him before landing.
Nastiest Pitches
Tanner Houck’s Splitter
Tanner Houck got the start on Monday in Anaheim as the Red Sox continue their West Coast road trip. Despite not garnering a win, Houck put forth his best start of the season, going six innings, allowing only one run, and striking out eight. He had it all working on Monday and put away Shohei Ohtani on a great split-change.
Kodai Senga’s Ghost-Fork
Kodai Senga’s ghost-fork was featured in the Nastiest Pitches section only a couple of weeks ago and makes a reappearance in this edition after an absolutely nasty one put away Mike Tauchmann.
Zac Gallen’s Knuckle-Curve
After an incredible run of dominance, Zac Gallen had a small hiccup last week against the Pirates. He bounced back with a solid start in Philadelphia and had the knuckle-curve working; evidenced by this flailing attempt of a swing from Bryson Stott.
Colin Holderman’s Sinker
The Texas Rangers are the highest-scoring team in baseball, and after a weekend sweep of the Rockies, traveled to Pittsburgh to take on the Pirates. They would take two of three but dropped Monday’s opener after a strong Luis Ortiz start. Colin Holderman relieved Ortiz for only one batter and struck out Corey Seager on a running triple-digit sinker at the top of the zone.
Jhoan Duran’s Whole Arsenal
Since GIFs of the week are no longer limited to individual nastiest pitches, we need to see Jhoan Duran’s full dismantling of poor Blake Sabol. Each of these individual pitches qualifies as a Nasty Pitch in its own right, but the sequencing of these over the full at-bat is just unfair. He starts him off with a 100-mph splitter to get the whiff, comes back with a 104-mph heater on the corner, and puts him away with a sharp breaking ball below the zone. As Sabol would agree, hitting is tough.
Top Long Balls
Olson Over Everything
With Atlanta’s loaded lineup, it seems every week we see a mammoth home run produced by one of their sluggers. Matt Olson came up just short of Acuña’s moonshot a couple of weeks ago but put up a respective effort in his own right as he pulled a Tony Gonsolin slider 456 ft and over everything in right field. The ball came off the bat at a blistering 115 mph and didn’t take long to clear the stands in right.
France Puts the Lights Out
The Mariners fell down in an 0-2 hole early on Tuesday, but it took only two swings for Seattle to climb back and take the lead. JP Crawford drove a home run to deep right to tie the game in the fifth, and Ty France went back-to-back to take the 3-2 lead. That’s all the offense that the Mariners would need as the final remained 3-2. France’s 420-foot blast was hit so hard, that it hit the out-of-town scoreboard and knocked out the lights on Texas.
Oh, No!
Wrong Direction
Bobby Witt Jr. may be struggling to replicate his rookie success offensively this year, but he’s been as solid as ever on the defensive end ranking in the 99th percentile in Outs Above Average. He didn’t provide his best defensive highlight on Monday, however, as in the eighth inning, Witt was fooled by a broken bat and chased the bat rather than the ball. This turned a Riley Greene routine groundout into a base hit. It would not come back to haunt the Royals as Aroldis Chapman stuck out the following two Tigers to end the inning, though Kansas City would go on to lose in extras.
Squirrel!
Every year we get a video of an animal or two invading a ballpark, and although there have been a couple of unfortunate bird incidents already, this squirrel’s visit to Yankee Stadium ended much better. The rodent scampered along the top of the outfield wall, eliciting a range of emotions from the fans close by. The squirrel leaped off the wall and stuck the landing on the warning track. It proved to be good luck for the Yankees as they completed the comeback walk-off win.
Featured Image by Kurt Wasemiller.