The weekend before the All-Star Break, the Oakland A’s played the Philadelphia Phillies. Oakland has been one of the worst teams in MLB in recent years. If the baseball world has paid any attention to the A’s, it’s due to their attempts to relocate.
There was one player that caught Phillies star Bryce Harper’s eye, however. Watching reliever Mason Miller warming up in the A’s bullpen, Harper asked an Oakland coach, “Hey, is that Miller?”
When told it was, Harper said, “I kind of want to get in there (to bat) and see what that’s about.”
Miller has burst onto the scene this season, his second in the majors. Despite playing for a team with only 39 wins, he has 15 saves and is allowing 0.857 baserunners per inning. He’s struck out 70 batters in 39.2 innings. Nearly half—46%—of the batters who have faced him have fanned, and the league is hitting just .149 against him.
Videos of his pitches, which combine ungodly movement with blazing speed, have been going viral on social media since opening day.
Miller came into pitch in the first game of the series in Philadelphia, and Harper got an eyeful. He threw 21 pitches in retiring the side. Thirteen of them topped 100 mph, including ones that lit up the radar gun at 103.7, 103.6 and a pair of 103.4s.
Both Harper and Miller made the All-Star team and happened to be on the same flight to Arlington, Texas after the series had ended. Harper approached Miller’s seat on the plane and introduced himself.
“Hey,” Miller said. “I hear you wanted to get in and see me.”
“Nah,” Harper replied. “I’m good. Changed my mind.”
Two days later, Miller took the mound at the All-Star Game and showed the nation what Harper had seen. He threw 12 pitches, topping 100 on eight of them. With the best pitchers in baseball each getting their turn, Miller turned in the six fastest pitches of the game, including one at 103.6, which was the fastest pitch in the history of the All-Star Game.
“That was a loose goal,” he said of the velocity record.
He struck out Shohei Ohtani and Trea Turner, both swinging, and ended up earning the win in the game.
“To do it on this stage, in front of this crowd, against these talented players, is something I’ll have forever,” he said.
It’s been a remarkable rise for Miller, who, not too long ago, was pitching for Division II Waynesburg University and throwing much slower. Estimates are that his top speed was 88 or 89, but that’s not an exact measurement.
Why?
“We didn’t have a radar gun at Waynesburg,” he said. “I had no idea what I was throwing.”
Part of the problem was that he was having trouble keeping weight on, which sapped his strength. When he took a drug test to apply for a summer internship in spring 2018, his blood sample gave the explanation.
“At first, they thought I was trying to dilute my sample,” he said. “They did further testing, and it showed my blood sugar was off the charts. They sent me to the ER.” He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and began getting treatment. It had an immediate impact.
“I put on 15 pounds in three days in the hospital,” he said. “After that, it was just steady gain, and the velo followed along with the weight.”
Soon, he was hitting 98 and 99 mph, which meant he needed to relocate somewhere with radar guns, and a higher level of competition. He transferred to Gardner-Webb.
“Once I got there, I had a lot of coaches and scouts around, saying, ‘Hey, you’re running it up there a little bit,’” he said. “It was shocking to me to see it continue to go up.”
He struck out 121 of the 396 batters he faced in his season at Gardner-Webb, going 8-1 for the Bulldogs. He was drafted in the third round in 2021, the highest G-W player taken in 16 years.
“It feels like a long time ago, but when you put a year on it, like, hey, that was only three, four, five years ago,” he said of his college experience. “Moments like this, they give you a chance to take perspective and look back at where you’ve come from, all the steps along the way that have gone into it and just really be grateful for that journey.”
