No one currently throws the ball harder than Los Angeles Angels rookie Ben Joyce. He’s getting closer to making it so no one in history has either.
With a 105.5 mph fastball to strike out Los Angeles Dodgers utility man Tommy Edman, Joyce came 0.3 mph shy of throwing the fastest recorded pitch in MLB history. Only Aroldis Chapman, with pitches of 105.8 mph and 105.7 mph, has thrown the ball harder off the mound.
The broadcast radar gun showed the velocity as 106 mph.
The pitch is also the fastest recorded strikeout pitch in MLB history.
This isn’t the first time Joyce has hit 105.5 mph, as he also did it in college when he was a flamethrower at Tennessee. His heat has been known for years, with his success always just a matter of getting his command under control. So far, that’s been a relative success in 2024.
Joyce’s place in history has its limitations, though. Statcast has only been around since 2015, with MLB tracking pitches with the less reliable PITCHf/x system from 2006 to 2015 when Chapman’s record pitch was recorded.
Before PITCHf/x, pitches were measured with the even less reliable radar guns, in a way that potentially shortchanged past velocity gods such as Nolan Ryan. MLB pitchers have never been better trained to reach high velocities, but limitations in the measurement make the title of “fastest pitcher ever” a little trickier than you’d want.
And, of course, that velocity didn’t matter much for the Angels, as the 104.4 mph ball off the bat of Mookie Betts in extras wound up being more impactful in a 6-2 Dodgers win.
All of that made for an eventful return to Angel Stadium for Shohei Ohtani.