It’s been six days since Mason Miller let someone hit the baseball. Really, that’s not fairly true. Till the right-hander caught Michael Busch with a literal back-foot slider within the eighth-inning of yesterday’s Wild Card matchup between the Padres and the Cubs, it had certainly been 5 days, three reduction appearances, and 11 batters since anyone got here to the plate towards Miller and did one thing aside from strike out. Nonetheless, six of these 11 victims managed to get their bats on the ball. Three of them did it twice. It’s simply that over the previous week, no one has been in a position to determine learn how to sq. up one among Miller’s disappearing sliders or 102 mph fastballs – sure, his four-seamer has averaged 102 mph during the last three outings – effectively sufficient to attain a lot as a tapper again to the mound. Busch’s unlucky foot snapped the streak at 11, but it surely did nothing to look Miller look extra hittable.
In a enjoyable twist, the all-time report for consecutive strikeouts (or at the least since 1961, when full play-by-play knowledge grew to become obtainable) belongs to Miller’s teammate Jeremiah Estrada. Estrada struck out a 13 straight batters throughout three appearances simply final Could. In truth, he struck all 13 of them out swinging.
That’s a pleasurably tidy play log. Estrada’s streak solely ended as a result of, when he entered the sport on Could 31 towards the Royals, supervisor Mike Schildt deliberately walked the primary batter he confronted.
Anytime Miller is on the mound, the overall feeling amongst spectators is astonishment that anybody ever manages to place the ball in play. He simply threw an immaculate inning. Since his debut in 2023, Miller has allowed simply 0.55 hits per inning, the bottom fee amongst all 473 pitchers who’ve thrown at the least 100 innings. And now, following a 2025 season by which his 45.2% whiff fee ranked second amongst all pitchers, Miller has ascended to a better aircraft. His whiff fee over the previous three video games has rocketed as much as an absurd 61.9%.
Now that the streak has run its course, it’s time to rejoice the six marvels who managed to attach with one among his pitches, regardless of how inconsequential the contact. We’ll depend down, from the weakest contact to the strongest, beginning with Moisés Ballesteros getting the smallest quantity of baseball potential it’s potential to get. You’ll be able to simply hear the sound of the foul tip earlier than the ball hits the glove.
Truthfully, it’s spectacular that Ballesteros received sufficient of this pitch to make a sound in any respect. This can be a 102.6 mph fastball effectively above the strike zone. It got here in at a peak of three.76 ft, and this season, Miller ran a whiff fee of 55.9% on fastballs 3.7 ft or greater. Even pitchers who don’t throw 102 lean on four-seamers above the zone as a result of it’s so arduous for batters each to put off it and to hit it. This pitch is why we care about vertical strategy angle. This pitch is why we’ll always remember the climax of A League of their Personal. The pitch to Ballesteros technically went down as a whiff as a result of Statcast counts foul suggestions for strike three as whiffs reasonably than fouls, however we don’t should take that away from him. He gently brushed the baseball, and for that we honor him.
Subsequent up is Dansby Swanson, who received a tiny bit extra of the pitch and an entire lot extra of catcher Freddy Fermin.
You could assume Miller fooled Swanson with a 2-2 slider away, and he could effectively have executed so. It’s additionally equally potential that Swanson actually was making an attempt to maintain an eye fixed out for the slider. It’s simply that when you already know you would possibly see 104 up above the strike zone, making an attempt to search for the slider and really staying again lengthy sufficient to be on time for it are two very completely different propositions. The shortstop was simply capable of decelerate sufficient to throw the bat head on the ball. It was a fantastic accomplishment, and due to it, Fermin will certainly maintain a lifelong grudge.
Right here’s one other two-strike slider that simply barely prevented ending up as strike three. Forward 1-2, Miller missed excessive and inside to Seiya Suzuki, and this exhibits you why pitchers are inclined to assume arduous in, comfortable away.
Batters must catch the ball a lot additional in entrance of the plate when it’s on the within, so the truth that Suzuki was means out in entrance of this pitch didn’t damage him an excessive amount of. He nonetheless caught the smallest piece of it – so small that he barely saved it from sticking within the catcher’s mitt – however at the least he caught that piece with the barrel of his bat. Did he barrel this pitch up? Completely not. Did he strike out anyway on the very subsequent pitch? You guess he did.
We’re executed with the foul suggestions now. Up subsequent, now we have a bunch of 4 regular-looking foul balls. These ones stretch again to Miller’s final common season look towards the Diamondbacks on September 27, they usually’re all simply fastballs that no one might catch as much as.
For this reason pitching coaches inform pitchers intention for the center of the zone and dare batters to hit it, and that is the good thing about throwing tougher than simply about anybody who has ever lived. Miller didn’t essentially idiot anyone right here. They had been equipped for the fastball they usually received it. It was simply an excessive amount of to deal with. Swanson, Connor Kaiser, Carson Kelly, and even contact maven Geraldo Perdomo are doing all they’ll simply to slap this ball into the seats on the other aspect and stay to see one other pitch. Swanson took a strong hack and seemed out to the mound as if to say, “I’m on to you, Mason Miller.”
He was not, the truth is, onto Miller, however you may see why this foul felt like a victory.
Now we’re into the actually spectacular fouls. Right here’s Kelly once more, very almost maintaining the ball within the discipline of play!
Kelly is out forward of a slider on the within nook right here, and he sends a weak popup to the correct aspect that simply drifts out of play regardless of Luis Arraez’s heroic efforts to reel it in. Critically, Arraez tossed himself over a thick concrete barrier. He will need to have ended up with a severe bruise, and he took his frustration out on the netting. I wrote about this actual sort of batted ball again in Could. Usually if you’re forward of a pitch, you hit it to the pull aspect, however generally you’re to this point forward that you must drop your bat head to decelerate. At that time, you may’t assist however pop it up the opposite means. If Kelly had been above the ball, he would have hit a weak grounder to the left aspect – or, extra possible, fouled it straight down and off his personal foot – however since he was beneath it, he got here just some ft (or one gust of wind) from reaching the unimaginable dream of going through Mason Miller and coming away with a weak popout.
Final up is Geraldo Perdomo, lengthy among the best hitters in baseball relating to making contact, and extra not too long ago, someway among the best hitters in baseball, interval. Right here’s Perdomo genuinely rifling a slider to the pull aspect.
This ball got here off the bat at 100 mph. Perdomo was nonetheless means out in entrance of it. It was in all probability foul by an excellent 25 ft in the mean time it handed first base. Nonetheless, that’s the most effective contact anybody has made towards Miller in almost per week. Perdomo would go on to strike out like all of the others, however he can take delight in realizing that he’s the final participant ever to truly hit the ball arduous off Miller.
