How to Use curveball in a Sentence

curveball

noun
  • The batter struck out on a curveball.
  • The one-two pitch on the way: curveball, tapped foul off to the left of the plate.
    Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 2023
  • Richards’s curveball ranked at the top of the league in spin.
    BostonGlobe.com, 31 May 2021
  • The third week This week came with a bit of a curveball.
    Larry Stansbury, Essence, 7 Mar. 2025
  • His first pitch was a curveball that bounced in the dirt.
    Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 July 2021
  • On the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Miller threw a curveball at 80.4 mph at the bottom of the zone.
    Tom Rogers, Newsweek, 21 Feb. 2025
  • The truth is, any time of the year can throw me a migraine curveball.
    Natasha Lavender, SELF, 11 Mar. 2022
  • The first curveball of the sequence was well outside to run the count full.
    Peter Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Nov. 2022
  • But, like many of their pitchers over the years, the Keys had a good curveball.
    Washington Post, 17 May 2021
  • More of those curveballs Neville talked about loom on the horizon.
    Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Dec. 2023
  • Farmer was called out on strikes, frozen by a curveball.
    Bobby Nightengale, The Enquirer, 22 Sep. 2021
  • That seems to me to set up for a curveball or two early.
    Parker Gabriel, The Denver Post, 15 Oct. 2024
  • Urquidy’s first pitch to Trout that day at Minute Maid Park was a curveball.
    Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2022
  • Reyes turned on a 1-and-1 curveball, sending it over the wall in left field.
    Tim Withers, Hartford Courant, 3 July 2022
  • How Cole Kmet hit a curveball in the Chicago Bears’ blowout win.
    Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune, 14 Oct. 2024
  • With two on and one out, Mantiply tried to go down and away with a 1-2 curveball.
    Nick Piecoro, The Arizona Republic, 25 June 2022
  • Jefferies tried a curveball and a 96 mph sinker that missed.
    Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Apr. 2022
  • Joseph said the triple came on a second curveball thrown his way.
    James Peters, baltimoresun.com, 27 June 2021
  • With one flick of the wrist, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reached for a full-count curveball over the outer edge of the plate.
    Larry Fleisher, Forbes, 7 Sep. 2021
  • In the first inning, Stephenson hit a first pitch curveball to drive in a run.
    Charlie Goldsmith, The Enquirer, 11 May 2022
  • Ray didn’t throw any curveballs against the A’s, but confirmed that the breaking ball will still be part of the mix.
    Justice Delos Santos, The Mercury News, 25 Feb. 2025
  • But baseball can be a fickle game, and the fates can spin faster than the best curveball.
    Creg Stephenson | Cstephenson@al.com, al, 27 Oct. 2021
  • Janet Dunne made peace a long time ago with the awful curveball life threw her in 1968.
    John Wilkens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Nov. 2021
  • And his curveball/changeup mix might be the best mix of secondary stuff in the system.
    Evan Grant, Dallas News, 14 Mar. 2023
  • With his 98th pitch, a curveball in the dirt, Snell ended the sixth inning with his 10th strikeout of the game.
    Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 12 Aug. 2024
  • Watching Tebow try to hit Triple A curveballs was more fun than this.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 26 Aug. 2023
  • In the 10th, Ketel Marte struck out looking on a curveball that appeared to miss the bottom of the zone.
    Theo MacKie, The Arizona Republic, 16 May 2023
  • Good thing Davis knows how to handle a curveball or two.
    Sandra Gonzalez, CNN, 24 June 2022
  • Clay Holmes entered and hit Max Muncy with a 2-0 curveball.
    Rohan Nadkarni, NBC News, 26 Oct. 2024
  • In a 0-2 count, Moustakas pulled a 77-mph curveball over the right-field wall for a solo homer.
    Bobby Nightengale, The Enquirer, 2 May 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'curveball.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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