With the Padres coming off a weekend sweep and on a five-game profitable streak, it was time to speak about Padres closer Mason Miller on the newest episode of “Baseball Bar-B-Cast.”
“Mason Miller is breaking the sport,” Jake Mintz declared.
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“If you’re angry about the Los Angeles Dodgers and their deep-pocketed ways, well, you should be even more furious about Mason Miller and his mind-bending, law-breaking fastball and his slider.”
The 27-year-old San Diego closer has confronted 24 batters to this point in 2026. Nineteen of them have struck out. Eighteen of these have struck out swinging. That’s a 79.2% strikeout fee, which might be a document if Miller sustains that over the course of the season. The different 5 plates appearances in opposition to him have been a stroll, a single (his solely hit allowed), a pop-out, a groundout and a flyout.
“He is as automatic as I can remember a pitcher being in one inning in our baseball-watching lives,” Mintz stated.
The fastball will get the majority of the consideration with Miller, which is comprehensible contemplating that he throws it 103 mph. But as the hosts famous, Miller is truly throwing his slider greater than his fastball to this point this in 2026, and that is making life much more tough for opposing hitters.
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“Every swing on a slider looks like someone that is gearing up for 103,” Jordan Shusterman defined. “The slider is 87 and has crazy movement, but you just have to imagine in a very simple sense, when you step in the box against Mason Miller, what are you thinking? ‘This guy’s about to throw 104 mph. I have to be ready.’
So hitters are attempting to prepare for Miller’s elite velocity, but then he’s throwing his slider more than his fastball. The result? “Guys are just whiffing in ways that — even the best hitters — you’re not [used to] seeing them miss this badly on these sliders.”
Added Mintz: “He’s making people look like Little Leaguers.”
The hosts additionally marveled at the proven fact that Miller pitched for 4 years at Waynesburg University earlier than enjoying his last faculty season at Gardner-Webb.
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“As someone who attended another D3 baseball game yesterday, I cannot — I cannot wrap! — my mind around it,” Shusterman exclaimed of Miller’s profession at Waynesburg. “And then he transfers to Gardner-Webb. It’s not like he transferred to LSU.”
From these humble origins, Miller has develop into, in Mintz’s phrases, “the most physically imposing, overpowering, dominant arm in the entire sport. And he was playing his freshman baseball games in front of, you know, everyone’s parents and nobody else.
“It is one of the most remarkable things about our sport right now.”
How lengthy can Miller maintain this unimaginable run? Only time will inform, however in the meantime, he is pitching significant innings for a group with its sights set on a postseason run. And that, Mintz and Shusterman agree, is price your consideration.
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“Seeing Mason Miller come out of the bullpen in a packed Petco Park with his intro and a sold-out crowd fits what that guy is at this point in his career,” Mintz stated.
“This is as guaranteed have-to-tune-in as we have in the sport right now.”
