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Dodgers Announcers Suggest Angels Are Inflating Radar Gun Readings for Ben Joyce……Speed and Suspicion, Dodgers’ Voices Question the True Power Behind Joyce’s Fastball
Ben Joyce throwing the fastest-recorded pitch in Statcast history is impressive.
So impressive that the Los Angeles Dodgers radio booth is convinced that the crosstown American League team is juicing those stats. After an announcement in the press box that the Los Angeles Angels closer, who throws unhittable, heat-seeking missiles, hit 105.5 mph on the radar gun, Tim Neverett expressed his doubt that it actually happened.
Chris Haynes shares how great the “Inside the NBA” guys are
Go stand in the box and see if it’s 105 then. @Dodgers yall have the shittiest announcers and radio guys all they do is talk shit about other teams and if this was Kopech throwing 105.5 they’d be slobbering all over it pic.twitter.com/iApsVEYDRa
— On Deck on YT (@YT_OnDeck) September 4, 2024
“I don’t know, I might have a bridge in Brooklyn for you,” said the Dodgers radio play-by-play voice. “They’re saying it was the fastest pitch in the Statcast era — fastest one for a strikeout, and fastest pitch in Major League Baseball this year. No disrespect to Ben Joyce; he’s a hard thrower, but no human being can throw it the fast; I’m sorry.”
“The Angels are claiming that he did,” analyst Rick Monday chimed in. “Now we know, and when I had the conversations with a former general manager and he said, ‘Yes.’… And we were not asking about Ben Joyce or any other player with the Angels or the Dodgers, for that matter, but the conversation came to is that ‘Hey, are there times that if you have a pitcher that you know pitches and tries to chase velocity, did you ever kind of toy with the electronics?’ And the answer was, ‘Yes.’”
That may very well be the case, but if the announcers are accusing the Angels of doing some home cooking, we should note that Joyce struck out Bobby Witt Jr. on a 104 mph pitch just a few weeks back in Kansas City. So, in that case, that would seem to be a level of collusion unforeseen before.
Not to mention that this is the same Joyce who dialed up 20-plus pitches over 100 mph during the postseason while he was still a college student at the University of Tennessee. Those weren’t happening in Knoxville but in Omaha, Nebraska. So, unless Joyce knows every scoreboard operator in the greater United States, this seems to pass the smell test.
Not only that, but Aroldis Chapman has shown that a human being can throw 105 mph. It has been done before and will be done again, likely by the Angels and Pittsburgh Pirates closers, respectively.
“Well, if it was 105 or 205, he struck out two of the three batters, and they went 1-2-3 in the inning,” added Monday.
“There’s a city in the Midwest that’s notorious for juicing the radar gun,” Neverett said. “…Well, it looks great. People talk about it. It’s fun for the game. It’s like, ‘Wow, this guy is throwing 105.’ Well, nobody else has ever done that.”
Based on Joyce’s track record, we’ll say it’s more likely that he’s throwing upwards of 105 mph than not.
