PHILADELPHIA -- In the fifth inning of the first game of this World Series, a barrel-chested left-handed reliever named Jose Alvarado jogged out of the Philadelphia Phillies' bullpen, ascended the mound to face the middle of the Houston Astros' lineup and secured three outs on seven pitches. The first was a sinker that bore in at 99.4 mph, the next another at 99. That was merely an appetizer: Three more sinkers clocked in at 100.6, 100.8 and 101.2 mph before Alvarado threw his version of an off-speed pitch, a 95 mph cutter. He finished his scoreless outing with one last sinker at 99.9 mph and decamped for the bench, job complete.
Teammate Brad Hand marveled from the bullpen, not just at what Alvarado did but at how triple-digit fastballs are no longer the domain of a select few. This postseason, buoyed by Alvarado and 13 other pitchers who have cracked the 100 mph threshold, average velocity has jumped to 95.3 mph. In the first two games of the World Series, it's 95.6 mph, a number that once was unimaginable to Hand and David Robertson, his veteran teammate in the Phillies' bullpen.
"Me and D-Rob joked about how there need to be two different plates," Hand said. "One if you throw 95-plus, and another one a little closer if you don't, just to make it fair."
Welcome to Major League Baseball, 2022 style, where if you don't throw hard, you probably don't throw much at all. Gone with few exceptions are the nibblers and soft-tossers, relics of a time when only the finest fastballs kissed 90 mph, replaced by live arms that reliably launch bolts. Back in 2008, the first year MLB tracked all pitch data, pitchers threw three fastballs of 100 mph or greater in the playoffs. This year, there have already been 164. And with Game 3 at Citizens Bank Park postponed because of rain in Philadelphia, the teams' rested bullpens will only add to the list.
It's not just the top-end arms or elite relievers. The average starter is throwing 94.9 mph this October. Relievers, even generally anonymous ones, are at 95.9 mph. It's everyone. In 2008, the postseason's hardest thrower was Bobby Jenks, whose fastball averaged 97.5 mph. This postseason alone, 17 pitchers have faster average heaters than Jenks'. Five years ago, 27 of the 100 playoff pitchers sat above 95 mph. This year, it's 68 of 131 -- more than half.
Veloctober isn't necessarily a new phenomenon. Every year, fastball velocity ticks up between the regular season and the postseason, though never has it been as pronounced as it is this year -- a 1.7 mph jump from the regular-season average of 93.6. The takeaway is clear: If a team wants to contend in this age of baseball, it needs an army of hard throwers to compete with other teams working to amass the same.
"Bigger, stronger and faster -- they figured out how to do it," Robertson said. "They dissected the game so much and figured out how to do what only a few guys could do before."
And now they are Frankenstein's monsters, lab-created pitchers throwing lab-quality stuff, striking out more batters than ever, so tilting the game in favor of pitchers that MLB changed its rules for next season in hopes of finding more balance. The new pitch clock will alter plenty in the game, but those in charge of the rules have come to terms with one clear reality.
Velocity isn't going anywhere. Not this year, not next year, not ever.
ON ANY GIVEN NIGHT, Astros manager Dusty Baker can call down to his bullpen and find five guys throwing at least 98 mph. The Astros' bullpen entered the World Series having allowed only three runs in 33 postseason innings, and its trademark velocity is certainly a big part of why.
"Early on, when velo was just starting to trend up, they were only worrying about velo and didn't care about command," said Ryne Stanek, the hardest throwing of the Astros' relievers -- he hit 101 earlier this season and has sat 98 to 99 this October. "They were calling up guys that were 97 to 100 but had no clue where it was going. But guys are starting to get to those [speeds] earlier, so they're starting to refine their skills earlier. And if you're refining command with plus stuff, you're going to limit walks, you're going to limit hits, you're going to be more effective."
The ideas behind the velocity revolution in baseball are not novel; they were simply regarded as impossible for more than a century. Fastball velocity was considered as tied to a pitcher's DNA as his eye color. There were only so many miles per hour in each arm. Extracting them was the key.
In the mid-2000s, when pitch tracking imbued the game with its data-heavy brand of knowledge, the sport learned it had been wrong. Pitchers were taught, very simply, every mile per hour of velocity added is about a quarter-point of ERA lowered. Specialized weightlifting, the emergence of so-called gas camps, something as simple as focusing on intent and especially younger and younger players training these skills -- all of it created a new generation of pitchers happy to get greedy with velocity.
"I just was always so amazed by it," said Hunter Brown, a 24-year-old rookie and another of the Astros' triple-digit crew, who grew up in the Detroit area watching one of the original flamethrowers, former Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya. "You know they would say chicks dig the long ball? Guys like the guys who throw hard. Because that's what I wanted to do."
Why Brown, or anyone else, wants that is obvious: It works. Even though fastballs are being thrown less than ever -- fewer than half of pitches in the regular season and postseason now are heaters -- the number of them still far exceeds every other type of pitch. And when standard velocity is overwhelming enough to stand on its own, the rest of a pitcher's pitches look even better.
"I don't even flinch at 98, 99 anymore," said Astros reliever Seth Martinez, who didn't make the World Series roster. "It's just like, yeah, that's what they do. I don't know how much faster guys can throw. I do think there's a limit and we're pretty close to it. But who knows? It does keep increasing every year."
Martinez, whose fastball currently tops out at 94 mph, said he'll spend his winter training his pitch speed. He's hoping to bump his maximum velocity closer to 96 mph -- the best way in this age to become World Series-worthy.
IN LATE MAY, the Phillies demoted Jose Alvarado to Triple-A. They had acquired him from Tampa Bay before the 2021 season, hopeful they could harness his electric fastball. They couldn't. So down he went to Lehigh Valley, for a two-week stint to try something new. It ended up completely changing the Phillies' season.
Philadelphia wanted Alvarado to work on his cutter -- to throw it as much as possible, get used to it, recruit it in important moments and pound it for strikes. If that were the case, his fastball could serve almost as an on-speed pitch, not something he needed to consistently land in the zone. The fastball, at 99, 100, 101, even 102, would remain a weapon. The cutter would simply make it even more of one.
"The key to that pitch is that I just don't have fear with it," Alvarado said. "I just throw it. They can do what they can with it, but I just have confidence in that pitch."
The Phillies are in a World Series tied at a game apiece because of Alvarado's performances along with those of Seranthony Dominguez, the right-handed complement to his triple-digit heat. Though others along the way have chipped in, the highest-leverage situations belong to Alvarado and Dominguez. Their electricity emboldens Phillies manager Rob Thomson, who has swashbuckled through the middle and late innings to great effect, to be able to make decisions like he did in the Phillies' 10-inning win over the Astros in Game 1.
Putting in a closer type like Alvarado during the fifth inning so he can face left-handed Astros sluggers Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker epitomizes modern bullpen use -- and it's the sort of thing the proliferation of velocity encourages. If you have to burn perhaps your best reliever at a vital moment in a game -- Thomson wanted a shutdown inning after the Phillies had erased a five-run deficit -- then so be it. There are always more big arms waiting.
And there were. Dominguez secured five outs to keep his postseason ERA a pristine 0.00 and forced extra innings. Coming in to lock down the final three outs was ... David Robertson, the 37-year-old relic.
These days, his primary pitch is a 93 mph cutter -- Robertson actually throws harder now than he did as a 23-year-old rookie (in 2008, the first year of pitch tracking). Even still, Astros hitters licked their chops when he came to the mound on Friday, as if anything under 95 is comparatively easy enough that it warrants Robertson and Hand's make-believe double plate. Eventually, Robertson wriggled out of an uncomfortable situation and locked down the save, stranding what would have been the winning run on second base.
"I don't look at any of the analytical data," Robertson said. "I just do what I've been doing my whole career."
When Robertson started, the Seranthony Dominguezes of the sport were rarities and the Jose Alvarados nonexistent. Turning Alvarado from a liability into a necessity has helped transform the Phillies from fringe contenders into potential World Series champions.
"I compare my adjustments to that of the team," Alvarado said. "We're just doing the little things, and it's evidence in how we're clicking. Everything's working out. We haven't been the favorites at all, and look at where we are."