He also threw a "tight" slider which averaged 83 mph and "a big breaking curve-ball" which averaged 74 mph. His curveball was thought to be especially difficult to hit; in 2004 Sandy Alomar, Jr. called it the "best breaking ball I've seen; Bert Blyleven doesn't throw it better [...] you don't know where it's going to land. He changes speeds with the breaking ball. He throws it hard. He throws it at you. He knows how to set you up." Kalk called it a "slurvy curve with huge horizontal movement and little vertical drop" noting that he "can add and subtract from a pitch that can like anything from one of his better sliders to a 65 mph beast with massive horizontal and vertical movement." Poet Carson Cistulli once wrote that "Javier Vazquez's curvepiece makes me a Better Man"