Duran throws fastest pitch of 2023 … again
Before he emerged from the guests’ bullpen on Wednesday night time at T-Mobile Park, Twins nearer Jhoan Duran already owned the 4 quickest pitches of the 2023 MLB season, starting from 104.4-104.6 mph.
The 25-year-old couldn’t assist however break his personal document whereas ending off the Mariners in a 6-3 Minnesota win in Seattle.
Duran uncorked the quickest pitch of 2023 and the Eleventh-fastest since pitch monitoring started in 2008, a 104.8 mph four-seam fastball to Mariners third baseman Eugenio Suárez. Miraculously, Suárez really put the pitch in play, grounding out to shortstop for the second out of the underside of the ninth.
Duran wasn’t executed. After setting a brand new season-high for pitch velocity, he flung a 104 mph heater by designated hitter Mike Ford for strike three to select up his sixteenth save of the season and provides the Twins their second straight victory.
In the midst of his second season within the Majors, Duran owns the second-highest common fastball velocity of any pitcher within the pitch monitoring period (behind the Angels’ Ben Joyce). He’s one in every of simply 5 pitchers to throw a pitch clocked at greater than 104 mph — and as Wednesday night time confirmed, that energy comes straightforward to Duran.
The right-hander mentioned he has no specific goal he needs to hit on the radar gun; he simply retains doing his factor.
“I throw to home plate like as hard as I can,” he mentioned. “Something happens.”
It positive does. And if historical past is any indication, Duran’s new document will not stand for too lengthy. His electrical fastball would possibly simply be the pitch to interrupt it as soon as once more.
“It keeps going into outer space,” Twins supervisor Rocco Baldelli mentioned. “I don’t know where it’s going to stop. You see it throughout the league as a whole, where it’s gone from one level to the next level when it comes to velocity. But he’s living on his own planet at this point.”
Do-Hyoung Park contributed reporting.
