{"id":72220,"date":"2024-05-03T13:36:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T17:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=72220"},"modified":"2024-05-03T13:36:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T17:36:51","slug":"oakland-athletics-mason-miller-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/03\/oakland-athletics-mason-miller-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics Third Round Draft Pick Making Baseball History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Closer Mason Miller is not only giving Athletics fans something to be excited about, but he\u2019s also making history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Oakland Athletics have had the best bullpen in baseball over the past week, and closer Mason Miller\u2019s historic start is a big reason for this. The 25-year-old right-hander recorded his eighth save of the season on Tuesday and made baseball history. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millema03.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mason Miller<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the first pitcher in MLB history to have eight saves and 20 strikeouts in any span of eight regular season games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">A complete list of every pitcher in MLB history to have 8 saves and 20 strikeouts in any span of 8 regular season games:<\/p>\n<p>Mason Miller<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s the list. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DPSWHBTa4m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/DPSWHBTa4m<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Codify (@CodifyBaseball) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CodifyBaseball\/status\/1785690727412043776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 1, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Miller made his MLB debut with the Athletics last season, going 0-3 with a 3.78 ERA through 10 games. Six of his appearances last year were starts, and he moved to the bullpen after suffering a right UCL sprain. To protect his health, the A&#8217;s announced that Miller would be coming out of the bullpen in 2024. Miller has quickly taken to his new role as a reliever and has been the most effective closer in baseball.<\/p>\n<h3>Former A&#8217;s Starter Mason Miller Has Become Baseball&#8217;s Most Effective Closer<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since allowing two earned runs on March 30th, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/13\/dominance-oakland-athletics-flamethrower\/\" target=\"_self\">the flamethrower has been dominant.<\/a> Miller has pitched 13 \u2153 scoreless innings with three walks, four hits and 28 strikeouts. The right-hander has an insane 18.2 strikeouts per nine innings and the hardest fastball in the majors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His fastball averages 100.7 mph, and no batter has put a high fastball in play through 34 swings. He leads the major leagues in velocity, throwing 97 at least 100 mph pitches. His fastball has increased an additional 3.3 mph as a reliever from his velocity as a starter last season. The A\u2019s right-hander also throws one of the best sliders in baseball, ranking in the top 10 for movement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oakland\u2019s third-round draft pick in 2021 is on pace to be the A\u2019s new <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hendrli01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Liam Hendriks<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Hendriks is the only Oakland reliever to be named an All-Star in the past nine years. The 35-year-old pitched to a 4-4 record with a 1.80 ERA and 25 saves in his 2019 All-Star season. The 25-year-old Miller has pitched to a 1.26 ERA through 14 \u2153 innings and is on pace for a 40-save season.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While there is speculation about the A\u2019s dealing the best closer in baseball, Miller is still signed to a rookie contract with six years to go. So, even though Oakland has been known to trade their top players, A\u2019s fans should see Miller both <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/04\/oakland-athletics-to-sacramento-starting-in-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">in Sacramento<\/a> and Las Vegas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Closer Mason Miller is not only giving Athletics fans something to be excited about, but he\u2019s also making history. The Oakland Athletics have had the best bullpen in baseball over the past week, and closer Mason Miller\u2019s historic start is a big reason for this. The 25-year-old right-hander recorded his eighth save of the season [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":72227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1071],"tags":[906],"class_list":["post-72220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-mlb","tag-liam-hendriks"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}