Yu Darvish GIF: A fan on Reddit created a GIF of five pitches Darvish often throws.
“This took me a couple hours put together,” said the fan, DShep.
He said it was “An experiment in showing a variety of pitch types in a unique way.”
“Used 5 pitches from last night; a 97 mph 4 seam fastball, 96 mph 2 seam fastball, 85 mph slider, 78 mph slider with a different grip that is more vertical, and a 64 mph slow curve. He also throws a cutter and splitter/changeup regularly but I figured those would make it too messy. I tried to use pitches that started in a similar location and had the movement take them away rather than say an inside fastball and outside slider, though you can tell that wasn’t exact.”
Darvish is a Japanese-born pitcher for the Texas Rangers. He’s caught baseball fans attention with his many innings where no batters hit what he’s throwing.
As for the pitches, another Reddit commentor explained which is which.
“The curve is the one that goes highest. The fastballs are the two to the right with the 2 seam being the one that ends ups most inside to [Albert] Pujols. The sliders are the ones that dive all the way left.”
The GIF helps praise the “MLB-strikeout machine,” according to the Bleacher Report.
“In just his first season with the Rangers, Darvish was No. 7 in the league in strikeouts (221) and was second in strikeouts over nine innings (10.40). He does it with an amazing array of out pitches that makes it nearly impossible for a batter to get a perfect scouting report on the ace.”
