Major League Baseball’s potentially best pitcher right now, doesn’t throw more than one or two innings.
Mason Miller of the San Diego Padres is having the type of run that all MLB fans should know about. We’ve talked about Miller a bit so far this season. He has been lights-out, to say the least. He has made nine appearances so far this season for the Padres, and his longest outing has been 1 1/3 innings. Regardless, he looks like the best most dominant pitcher in the game right now.
Miller has faced 30 batters so far this season and has struck out 23 of them. That’s insanity. On Thursday, he recorded his sixth save of the season for the Padres and struck out the side in the process. That doesn’t look like a lot. But it was the fifth time this season in which he faced three or more batters and struck them all out. That’s five out of nine appearances.
If that still doesn’t convince you of his greatness, MLB’s Sarah Langs shared on X that Miller’s five appearances striking out every batter he’s seen in which he faced three or more batters in a team’s first 19 games of a season is the most by a pitcher since at least 1900.
“Mason Miller has 5 appearances this season where he faced 3+ batters and struck them all out,” Langs wrote. “That’s two more than by any other pitcher in his team’s first 19 games of a season since at least 1900.”
Langs also pointed out that Miller’s 76.7 percent strikeout rate is the highest by a pitcher in their first nine games of a season in the last 120 years. These are numbers that haven’t popped up in over 100 years. If you are a fan of baseball, tune into what Miller is doing. You may not ever see this type of run again.
Miller has made nine appearances so far this season and has allowed just one base hit in 9 1/3 shutout innings pitched. He’s leading the league with six saves and has struck out 23 of 30 batters. That’s not even all. He is riding a 30 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, which is second-best in Padres history, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. This is the type of run that simply doesn’t happen. You don’t see this every year. If he can pitch at a level similar to this throughout the season, we’re talking about a potential NL Cy Young Award here.
Eric Gagné is the last reliever to win the Cy Young Award back in 2003 as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. That year, he made 77 total appearances and had a 1.20 ERA and 55 saves in 82 1/3 innings pitched.
He put up some insane strikeout numbers that year and struck out 137 batters and walked just 20. Miller is on pace for even more. 23 strikeouts in 9 1/3 innings pitched is a pace of 202 strikeouts across 82 1/3 innings pitched, which is the mark Gagné hit. If Miller can stay healthy and dominant throughout the season, we may be looking at the next reliever to take home a Cy Young Award.
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