Mason Miller has been DOMINATING
The Padres flamethrower has literally been unhittable going back to last season
This piece is not about whether or not Team USA manager Mark DeRosa should have used San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller with the World Baseball Classic final against Venezuela tied at two in the ninth inning. This is about the unprecedented, dominant run that Miller has been on since the end of the 2025 regular season.
Armed with a four-seam fastball that can reach over 104 miles-per-hour and a wipeout slider, Miller has some of the best stuff the game has ever seen.
Going back to Sept. 8, in regular season, postseason, and World Baseball Classic games, Miller has not allowed a hit (as first noted by Just Baseball Media’s Peter Appel on Twitter). The last player to get a hit off of Miller? Former Colorado Rockies first baseman Warming Bernabel, who hit a soft ground ball into right field in the eighth inning during a Padres 10-8 win on Sept. 6.
That is 50 at-bats without allowing a hit. In those 50 at-bats, Miller has 39 strikeouts.
What is so impressive is Miller has turned it up when the games mattered most, like down the stretch during the Padres’ NL West push, the Wild Card round against the Chicago Cubs and in the World Baseball Classic against Brazil, Italy, Canada, the Dominican Republic.
Miller made two appearances in the postseason. In Game 1, He came in to pitch the seventh with the Padres down 2-1 and struck out Seiya Suzuki, Carson Kelly and Pete Crow-Armstrong. In Game 2, he recorded five outs on five strikeouts, once again coming in to start the seventh against Suzuki, Kelly and Crow-Armstrong and coming back out for the eighth, punching out Dansby Swanson and Moises Ballesteros before hitting Michael Busch with a pitch and exiting.
During his Game 2 at-bat against Kelly, Miller made postseason history with a 104.5 mph fastball, the fastest recorded postseason pitch since pitch-tracking began in 2008.
In the World Baseball Classic semifinal against the Dominican Republic, Miller came in to pitch the ninth with a slim 2-1 United States lead and struck out Junior Caminero, allowed a walk to Julio Rodriguez, and then, with Rodriguez representing the tying run on second after advancing on a wild pitch, struck out Oneil Cruz and Geraldo Perdomo to send Team USA to the finals.
Entering his third full season, the 27-year-old Miller looks to be getting better every time he steps on the mound. His fastball velo has consistently been ticking up. After being traded to the Padres at the deadline last season, he had a 0.77 ERA with a 17.4 SO/9 while being used in a Swiss Army Knife-type of role.
With former Padres closer Robert Suarez signing with the Braves, Miller could be in line for a more traditional ninth inning role this season. But new Padres manager Craig Stammen could still opt to use Miller against specific lineup pockets earlier in games and save one of his many other elite bullpen options, like Adrian Morejon, Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada or Wandy Peralta.
Miller already has a reputation as one of, if not the best arms in baseball. The Padres valued him highly enough to ship off an 18-year-old Leo De Vries, the No. 3 prospect in baseball at the time according to MLB Pipeline. He earned the closer role for a stacked Team USA.
It is going to be a must-watch occasion whenever Miller pitches.
He is so much fun to watch on the mound.
nice piece!