Yesterday, in these electronic pages, FanGraphs contributor and Italian-American street tough Mike Petriello published a much-deserved paean to Cleveland’s Carlos Carrasco, which right-handed pitcher has recorded the second-highest WAR among all pitchers over the last month and the absolutely lowest park- and league-adjusted xFIP among 111 qualifiers over that same interval.

Among Petriello’s observations is one concerning Carrasco’s split-change to the effect that it (i.e. the split-change) is simultaneously absurd and nearly impossible to hit — appended to which comments, and for the pleasure of the wide readership, were technicolor video examples of the pitch in question.

With a view towards facilitating even more pleasure for that same readership, what I’ve done below is supply three additional examples of Carrasco’s split-change from 2014 — the objectively most impressive examples, actually, where most impressive is defined as those changeups which feature the greatest overall movement relative to a spinless ball and also induced a swinging strike.

For each pitch, I’ve included the relevant batter, the date, the velocity, and then both the horizontal- and vertical-movement figures relative to a spinless ball from the catcher’s perspective, such that a negative horizontal figure denotes armside run from a right-handed pitcher.

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No. 3
Batter: Michael Morse   Date: April 25th
Velocity: 88.8 mph   Movement: -6.0 in. by -3.2 in. (6.8 in.)

Footage:

More Different Footage:

This footage comes from Carrasco’s fourth start of the season — and his last before a transition to the bullpen in late April. Carrasco’s fielding-independent marks against the Giants actually weren’t bad (3.79 FIP and 3.07 xFIP over 6.0 innings), but he conceded four runs and departed the game having recorded a 6.95 over his first four starts.

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No. 2
Batter: Marwin Gonzalez   Date: August 22nd
Velocity: 88.4 mph   Movement: -7.0 in. by -0.2 in. (7.0 in.)

Footage:

More Different Footage:

The Cleveland broadcast team noted after this pitch that Marwin Gonzalez seemed to be attempting to ambush a first-pitch fastball by Carrasco here, but whiffed when he got the changeup instead. What Gonzalez did was ambush a second-pitch fastball, homering to right field. Of course, that needn’t detract from the beauty of this particular offering, whose armside movement is depicted reasonably well in the slow-motion version of the two GIFs above.

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No. 1
Batter: David Peralta   Date: June 24th
Velocity: 89.3 mph   Movement: -7.4 in. by -0.3 in. (7.4 in.)

Footage:

More Different Footage:

According to the potentially flawed methodology described above, this is Carrasco’s most objectively impressive changeup of the season, from a late-June relief appearance. At 89.3 mph, it’s harder than the average fastballs thrown by a fifth of qualified starters — a leaderboard full of which I would insert a link right here had I not accidentally just closed the relevant window.