Oakland Athletics pitcher Mason Miller (19) and teammates celebrate a win over the New York Yankees ... [+]
The Oakland Athletics are still a losing team with 16 losses in 26 games but they look like a winning one when Mason Miller appears with his arsenal of high-end fastballs and a slider that changes the pace nicely on hitters.
The Yankees got a nice look at those pitches, notably Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe, who each faced him twice this week. Volpe was the only to touch Miller, getting a relatively hard-hit single.
Soto struck twice against Miller, doing so on six pitches. Five of those pitches were on fastballs clocked at over 100 mph and the other was on the 87 mph slider – a secondary pitch he gets 50 percent of his whiffs on even though it’s been thrown 76 times so far.
And the last on to Soto got the sluggers attention in the form of emotions. After whiffing, Soto lightly slammed the bat on the outer dirt and looked at Miller as if to say, all right you got my attention before heading back to the dugout.
“That’s my mix,” Miller said. “Those are the two pitches I’m gonna come at guys with. To see somebody get on base in the ninth, it got a little loud so the adrenaline started pumping a little bit but I quickly quieted it down with a strikeout.”
Judge flew out to end Miller’s first career four-out save, making slight contact on a slider Thursday and whiffing at a 102.5 mph fastball to end Monday’s game, which was noted for the bizarre ejection of manager Aaron by plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt and the subsequent explanation to a certain pool reporter.
The flyout to Judge capped a five-batter appearance when Miller entered with the bases loaded and he struck out Jose Trevino and Oswaldo Cabrera before getting the second dramatic whiff against Soto.
Miller’s save appearances so far are blink and you might miss them kind of affairs. In going a perfect six for six so far, Miller has thrown 91 pitches to 21 hitters and within that he has thrown 65 strikes, resulting in 15 strikeouts.
Against the Yankees, Miller threw nine pitches of at least 101 mph, bringing his total to 45 this season
Throwing 101 is not necessarily sustainable for starting pitchers with Jacob deGrom being a notable example given his injury history with the Mets and current recovery from Tommy John surgery with the Texas Rangers. It was not for Miller, who dealt with a right UCL injury last season and had a 3.70 ERA in six starts last season but in small doses throwing that hard can be sustainable and is it resulting in a pitcher ranked high towards the top of the leaderboards in virtually all Statcast metrics.
“The kid is impressive but he’s got a good slider to go with it and he showed that tonight a couple of times,” Oakland manager Mark Kotsay said. “He’s really embraced this role. He loves it and you can see just the energy when he comes into the game.”
The A’s are not much of a hitting team, own a struggling rotation at times along with the mess pertaining to next year’s move to Sacramento and seemingly eventual move to Las Vegas. For now, any time Miller is in the game with a chance to secure a save, he seemingly has the attention of opponents and may generate similar comments again such as how Aaron Boone described the Yankees’ two encounters with him.
“Obviously it’s a pretty special fastball but he’s got feel for his slider,” Boone said. “So he’s not just 80, here it comes. He mixes it up. It’s100-plus miles an hour and it looks like that up close. They obviously look like they’ve got a good one at the back end.”
