Former Tennessee pitcher Ben Joyce hits 104.7 mph for first MLB save
Ben Joyce took untouchable to a different level Saturday night and it resulted in his first career save in Major League Baseball. The former Tennessee Baseball flamethrower delivered a four-seam fastball at 104.7 miles per hour to help the Angels hold off the Mets in a 5-4 win.
“It was an 0-2 pitch,” Joyce said after the game, according to MLB.com, “so I just tried to let it eat and it ended up getting a good result.”
It was not only Joyce’s first career save. It also ran Joyce’s current scoreless-innings streak to 22 2/3 innings. He has a 1.82 ERA over his last 18 outings, pitching 24 2/3 innings.
“Joyce is going to be something special,” Angels manager Ron Washington told reporters Saturday night. “For me, every time you tell him something that educates him, he finds a way to use it.”
Ben Joyce dials it up to 104.7 MPH to get the final out of his first career save! 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/RLfbJUEGRm
— MLB (@MLB) August 4, 2024
‘I’ve never seen a fastball like that … that was the fastest fastball I’ve ever faced’
Joyce is one of just four pitchers to hit at least 104.5 miles per hour in the pitch-tracking era. Aroldis Chapman, Jordan Hicks and Jhoan Duran also did so. Chapman holds the velocity record with a 105.8 mph pitch in 2010.
“I’ve never seen a fastball like that,” Mets veteran J.D. Martinez, who Joyce struck out to end Saturday night’s game, said afterward. “For me, personally, that was the fastest fastball I’ve ever faced.
“He threw it and I laughed after he struck me out, I was kind of smiling like, ‘Woah.’ I had to look up at the radar, I was like, ‘That was different.’ Kudos to him, man, he throws hard and goes right at you.”
Joyce, picked in the third round by the Los Angeles Angels in the 2022 MLB Draft, has a career 2.86 ERA in 34.2 innings pitched. He pitched 10.0 innings in 2023, after making 16 appearances in the minors.
He made 27 appearances for Tennessee during the 2022 season, posting a 2.23 ERA over 32.1 innings pitched. He had 53 strikeouts against just 14 walks.
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Joyce in 2023 played for both the Inland Empire 66ers, the Angels’ Single-A affiliate, and the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the team’s Double-A affiliate, before being called up to the majors.
He appeared in 18 games for the Trash Pandas this seasons before being called back up to Los Angeles.
Ben Joyce has hit 104 mph three different times this season
Joyce on Saturday night went 1.1 innings, with the one strikeout to end the game. He’s the only pitcher in the majors to hit 104 mph this season, according to MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger, and has now done so three times.
When it came time for the final pitch, he couldn’t hear the call on the PitchCom system in his hat, forcing his catcher, Logan O’Hoppe, to come out to the mound and ask for the four-seam fastball.
“It was awesome, man,” Joyce said. “It started with (Zach) Neto’s homer (in the seventh inning). Like you just feel the energy in there, and I just tried to keep it up when I was out there.
“I felt pretty calm, even though there was definitely a different level of adrenaline. I couldn’t hear the PitchCom because it got too loud, and so it was a different level there.”
