Brewers hurler has career day with hard fastball

Freddy Peralta MARK HOFFMAN/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL / USA TODAY NETWORK

Brewers hurler fires off career-best 35 fastballs of at least 95 MPH

Originally posted on WI Sports Heroics | By Tyler Koerth_ | Last updated 4/9/23

Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Freddy Peralta has had an impressive start to the 2023 season. In his two combined starts, he has tossed 12 innings while racking up 14 strikeouts and struck out seven. He has allowed just one earned run in that space, which equates to a 0.75 ERA.

One noticeable difference for Peralta this year has been his fastball velocity. His fastball averaged 92.6 MPH last summer. In the early going this spring, his velocity has increased to 93.7 MPH. He is also maintaining a higher velocity deeper into games.

During his last start against the St. Louis Cardinals, for instance, Peralta threw a career high 35 fastballs at 95 MPH or higher. He threw 102 pitches in the game and four out of his last five fastball were clocked higher than 95 MPH. The fifth fastball was exactly 95 MPH.

Freddy Peralta threw the most 95-mph fastballs of his career today with 32, which he wasn’t aware of until informed: pic.twitter.com/ki7Sa5as6J

— Todd Rosiak (@Todd_Rosiak) April 9, 2023

Freddy’s last five fastballs as he crosses 100 total pitches:

97 – 97 – 96 – 96 – 95 – 96

He gets a 1-2-3 6th with K’s on Walker and Knizner. Great stuff from Peralta today #Brewers

— Dominic Cotroneo (@Dom_Cotroneo) April 9, 2023

During this same game, Freddy Peralta also threw the hardest pitch of his career as a starting pitcher. This was a 97.8 MPH dart to Jordan Walker.

Six innings, one run on 102 pitches for Freddy Peralta, who had the best fastball velo of any of his 69 MLB starts.

A 97.8 mph FB to Jordan Walker in the 4th was Freddy’s hardest fastball as a starting pitcher in the big leagues. (He has topped out at 99.0 mph as a reliever.)

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) April 9, 2023

There are a few factors that may explain why Peralta is throwing harder right now.

It is early in the season. Pitchers at this point do not have a lot of mileage on their arms and tend to reasonably be fresher than they would be in the middle of the campaign. Health is another factor. Peralta missed a big chunk of last season with injury and had two separate stints on the injured list.

It will be interesting to see if Fastball Freddy can keep up this high velocity as the season progresses, but at the very least, he has been very impressive to open the 2023 season.

This article first appeared on WI Sports Heroics and was syndicated with permission.

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