ARLINGTON, Texas — Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley had his choice of where to watch the All-Star Game, so he chose “home” and found a seat in the National League’s bullpen, which meant he had good company for the at-bat of the night, one he and “a lot of fans were looking forward to in that moment.”
In the fifth inning of a tie game, fellow flamethrowing reliever Mason Miller faced all-world Shohei Ohtani and did what no other pitcher could Tuesday night and then what no other pitcher may have done ever in an All-Star Game.
“That was sick,” Helsley said. “That was a sick at-bat.”
Ohtani already had a walk, a three-run homer and an early hold on the game’s MVP award when Oakland’s swashbuckling closer entered for his first All-Star appearance. Two All-Star pitchers before him, starter Corbin Burnes and Boston’s Tanner Houck, failed to retire the game’s first $700 million man. What could Miller do?
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Easy.
Cheese.
Miller dotted two 100 mph pitches and finished the at-bat with a slider Ohtani swung over for a strikeout. Miller’s next pitch to Trea Turner was 103.6 mph.
It’s the fastest pitch clocked at an All-Star Game.
“That’s serious gas,” Angels lefty Tyler Anderson said. “That is something I can’t even fathom. My body doesn’t work like that. I can’t imagine that. It looks like it would be a lot of fun to pitch like that.”
The decisive hit of the American League’s 5-3 victory Tuesday night at Globe Life Field in the 94th Midsummer Classic was Boston outfielder Jarren Duran’s two-run homer. But the defining moment came in the top half of the same inning. Duran’s homer made Miller the winner in the All-Star Game.
Miller’s outing made the All-Star Game memorable.
He is the third rookie to win an All-Star Game and the first since 1954.
Emblematic of the modern game, power played in the annual showcase of the game’s top talents. Fourteen pitches left the bat at faster than 100 mph in the game. Five of the games eight runs came on homers that traveled more than 400 feet. A total of 23 pitches in the game left the pitcher’s hand at 100 mph or faster, and that ranged from starter Paul Skenes’ 15th pitch of the game (100.0 mph) to Emmanuel Clase’s last pitch of the game (101.6 mph). Five different pitchers delivered a pitch clocked at 100 mph or faster.
The six fastest belong to 25-year-old Miller.
Including the fastest since 2008, when such measurements started.
“I think if you were placing bets, it would have been a safe one that he was going to do that tonight, especially the way he’s been throwing,” Helsley said. “The guy’s got electric stuff. So he was trying to do it?”
Kind of.
Yeah.
“We were joking this week leading up to it,” Miller said and then quoted his teammates. “‘You’ve got to shoot for it.’”
Over the few days of the All-Star break and All-Star festivities, several American League pitchers egged on Miller to chase the record. Miller has 15 saves for the lowly A’s and 70 strikeouts in 39²/³ innings. It doesn’t take any contortion of statistics to suggest that he’s either one of the most dominant relievers in the majors or the most dominant. Fewer than 100 innings into his big league career, he’s an All-Star for the A’s, which starts the clock on how long he’ll be with the A’s. Odds he’ll close games in Las Vegas should be taken off the board.
Miller overwhelms hitters with a fastball that averages 100.9 mph. But to truly chase after the velocity record, he had to do two things.
First, find out that record.
Second, get through Ohtani.
Miller drew the top of the National League’s lineup in the fifth inning with the score tied, 3-3. He got a flyout from Ketel Marte on the first pitch of the inning — a 101 mph fastball. He started Ohtani out the same way. All three of the NL’s runs came on Ohtani’s 400-foot homer in the third. Ohtani’s first career All-Star Game homer was the first by a Dodger since Mike Piazza in 1996. He walked in the first inning. The two-time MVP had seen nine pitches in the game and swung and missed once.
Ohtani took a 100.6 mph fastball for strike one, ignored a slider and took a low 101.8 mph fastball to fall behind 1-2.
“Just trying to be a little more fine than usual,” explained Miller, who has struck Ohtani out in the regular season once and held him 0 for 2. “I try to pitch him low because his damage is up, so I make sure I didn’t leave one up for him.”
The next pitch was a slider, biting at Ohtani’s shins and nowhere near his swing.
“Very good pitches,” Ohtani said. “Overall, very heavy.”
Miller peeped at the radar gun a few times and saw a 101 mph and a 102 mph. By the time he got in the game, he knew the record velocity for an All-Star Game since pitch-tracking began was 103.4 mph by Aroldis Chapman in 2015.
“I wanted to get 103.5 mph, plus,” Miller said.
With two on and Turner up, Miller let it rip.
His first pitch was a ball.
“I’m glad he didn’t throw it in the zone because I definitely would have missed it,” Turner said. “But, just out of hand, it looked like a rocket. Just straight down. I’m glad I got a chance to see that because everything else is just a little bit slower. Not much. A little bit slower. Gave me a chance after that.”
A few of Miller’s teammates glanced at the radar gun after the first pitch to Turner and saw the “103 mph.” The scoreboard did not show the decimal points, so no one looking there could be sure if Miller had eclipsed the record. He finished Turner’s at-bat with a 102.4 mph fastball and 88.4 mph slider combo for a strikeout. When he returned to the dugout, Miller learned what came after the decimal point on that first pitch to Turner: point-6. He edged Chapman by 0.2. Helsley had already looked it up, too.
As he said: sick.
“Cool, yeah, awesome,” Miller said. “Mission accomplished.”