The San Diego Padres are playing the Chicago Cubs in a winner-takes-all Game 3 matchup on Thursday afternoon. After the Cubs won Game 1, the Padres needed a strong performance to make up the difference in Game 2. Fortunately, they got it.
Dylan Cease was great, Adrian Morejon and Robert Suarez also looked good, but Mason Miller was the most noteworthy pitcher of the day for either team. He shut down the Cubs once more, adding five more strikeouts to his postseason resume.
After the game, Dennis Lin of The Athletic shared a piece on many different perspectives of Miller's dominance. While his teammates and a rival evaluator all called him dominant in so many words, the comment of Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong best summarized how well Miller pitched against the Cubs.
Padres' Mason Miller dominates, Crow-Armstrong shares reaction to 'tough' pitching
"Changing speeds like that," Crow-Armstrong said. "When you've got 14 miles an hour, 15 miles an hour, sometimes 16, 17 off his best pitch - that's always going to be tough."
Miller is a tough pitcher to face for his fastball alone, which reached 104 mph against Cubs' catcher Carson Kelly for a perfectly painted strike-three pitch. But when adding a nasty breaking ball on top of the heater, Miller is significantly harder to hit.
In Game 2, Crow-Armstrong was one of five Cubs' hitters to strike out at the hands of Miller. In the bottom of the 7th, Miller threw six pitches to Crow-Armstrong. Began the at-bat with an 89 mph slider, followed up by three straight 103 mph fastballs.
With the count now at 3-1, after Miller missed the zone on all but his second pitch of the at-bat, he then threw two knee-buckling sliders at 89 and 91 mph. The drop off from a 103 mph fastball to an 89 mph slider is huge.
A 14 mph difference between pitches is significant, but it's even more challenging when the fastball is sitting at 103. Batters need to begin their swings early; otherwise, they can't catch up to such high-velocity pitching.
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But, in Crow-Armstrong's case, both sliders to end the at-bat were looking. Miller's slider drops a bit on the way home, while his fastball doesn't drop much, if at all. So, when Miller throws a pitch that, if it were a fastball, would be well up and out of the zone, it's hard to fault Crow-Armstrong for watching the pitch go by.
Miller only has two pitches, but those two pitches work in perfect tandem with each other. And when Miller is on like he was against the Cubs, he's practically unhittable. The only baserunner came on a hit-by-pitch. Otherwise, it was a clean and dominant outing.
Crow-Armstrong calling Mason Miller "tough" might be underselling how difficult he is to get a hit off of. Not many pitchers in MLB history have had the kind of electricity that Miller has, and combined with his nasty slider, Miller is one-of-one.
Miller will be back on the mound in Game 3 of the Wild Card series if Mike Shildt calls for it, creating an opportunity for Miller to further cement his legacy as one of the most dominant relievers in baseball right now, and potentially, in history.
More Padres News:
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- Mike Shildt back to playoffs: this time in walk-off fashion
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