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No one throws the ball harder than Los Angeles Angels rookie Ben Joyce. And he's on the cusp of achieving a feat no other player in history has achieved.
With a fastball that topped out at 105.5 mph, which beat out Los Angeles Dodgers' Tommy Edman, Joyce came within 0.3 mph of throwing the fastest pitch in Major League Baseball history. Only Aroldis Chapman, who hit 105.8 mph and 105.7 mph, has thrown harder from the mound.
The broadcast radar showed the speed at 106 mph.
This pitch is also the fastest pitch ever recorded in Major League Baseball history.
This isn’t the first time Joyce has hit 105.5 mph, he did it in college as a Tennessee Flamethrower. His heat has been known for years, and his success has always been a matter of controlling his control. So far, it’s been a relative success in 2024.
But Joyce’s place in history has its limits. Statcast didn’t come out until 2015, tracking MLB pitches using the less reliable PITCHf/x system from 2006 to 2015, when Chapman’s record-breaking pitch was set.
Before the advent of PITCHf/x, balls were measured using less reliable radar, which could have denied speed gods like Nolan Ryan the chance to set records. Baseball players have never been better trained to reach high speeds, but the limitations of measurement make the title of “fastest pitcher ever” more difficult to achieve than you might like.
Of course, that speed didn't matter much to the Angels, as the 104.4 mph ball off Mookie Betts' bat in extra innings had a bigger impact in the Dodgers' 6-2 win.
All of this made returning to Angel Stadium a special event for Shohei Otani.
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