Since joining the San Diego Padres at last year’s trade deadline, closer Mason Miller has appeared in 44 games, and had scoreless appearances in 41 of them. The Dodgers accounted for one of the other three games in Tuesday’s win at Petco Park, helped in large part by Miller’s errant pickoff throw to first base that moved Alex Call to first base with only one out.
That provided a prime scoring opportunity for the Dodgers, with Andy Pages at the plate. He fell behind 0-2 to Miller but kept battling. Here are the pitches in that plate appearance:
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Slider (87.2 mph), foul (the errant pickoff attempt came after this pitch)
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Fastball (100.8 mph) foul
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Fastball (101.9 mph) ball
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Fastball (101.8 mph) foul
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Fastball (101.4 mph) ball
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Fastball (101.5 mph) sacrifice fly to right field
Miller has thrown 80 pitches this season registering at least 101 mph this season, about 21.6 percent of this total pitches thrown. Just 11 of those 80 super-fast pitches were put into play. Only 20 of those 80 pitches were fouled off, with Spencer Torkelson the only other player to foul off two in the same plate appearance, on March 28 in the ninth inning. Tokelson worked a walk, but was stranded.
Pages fouled off three of those 101-mph pitches, plus another 100.8-mph pitch, part of his six fouls in a nine-pitch battle that ended with a game-winning sacrifice fly on another 101.5-mph fastball.
From manager Dave Roberts, per Senji Torrey at Dodger Insider:
“I think, at the end of the day, it was just fight,” said manager Dave Roberts. “It’s just me versus you. And it was him versus Mason Miller, and he wasn’t gonna lose that battle. Mason’s the best in the game right now. And Andy, he willed himself to do something productive in that at-bat.”
Freddie Freeman, who homered twice earlier in the game, had high praise for Pages, per Jack Harris of the California Post:
It was a different moment, however, that had the 17-year veteran so mesmerized.
Andy Pages, he declared, had just taken “one of the greatest at-bats I’ve ever seen in person.”
“We were all just like, ‘Wow,’” Freeman added.
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“That at-bat,” Freeman reiterated, “was incredible.”
Judging by various Instagram story reshares Tuesday night of this clip, several other Dodgers were impressed, too.
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