MLB News & Moments You Should Know – 05/25/23

Stay updated on everything baseball with our morning MLB News & Moments articles. We’ve got you covered to keep you in the know.

Today’s Headlines

Johan Makes Two

Johan Oviedo with an immaculate inning. 😱 pic.twitter.com/mSIyFq1DOO

— MLB (@MLB) May 24, 2023

Now, we all know Immaculate Innings are already pretty rare, but this marks the second one the Pirates have thrown this season. In fact, Johan Oviedo’s is their second of the month, with the first one coming from (aptly named) Colin Holderman on May 4th.

This is the second time in baseball history that I can find teammates that have thrown a pair of immaculate innings in the same calendar month. (The last time was in 2022 when Astros Luis Garcia and Phil Maton did it in the same game.)

Also, both Pirates’ innings came against the team with the best run differential in baseball at the time, first the Rays, now the Rangers.

Baseball!

Trout Movin’ Up

Last week, Mike Trout passed Pedro Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr on the all-time bWAR leaderboard. Last night, he moved up on another leaderboard:

With home run No. 362, @MikeTrout passes Joe DiMaggio on the all-time list! pic.twitter.com/i0noDQfzIq

— MLB (@MLB) May 25, 2023

We’re well past the point where Trout is “the most underrated player in baseball” (although that period did seem to last too long) but it really is incredible to stop and think about how cool it is that we are all alive to see him play.

Bryce Miller Is Doing Something Weird

I mean, to be clear, all pitchers are weirdos doing something weird on a constant basis, but Bryce Miller is doing something specifically weird.

Six shutout frames lowers Bryce Miller's MLB ERA to 1.15 over five starts.

The @Mariners' second-ranked prospect threw his fastball 81.1% of the time en route to six strikeouts.

More on his impossible-to-hit heater 🗞️: https://t.co/tdoRVmk5r3 pic.twitter.com/JiQ4aibICi

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) May 25, 2023

81% fastball usage is unheard of for non-closers in modern baseball. Across the entire league, four-seamers get thrown around 30% of the time. Bryce doesn’t care. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually pulling the league average up singlehandedly since he’s throwing his hellacious heater at a nearly 70% clip. For some more perspective, Hunter Greene throws his around 50% of the time, and Spencer Strider 60% of the time. Bryce is #3 on the list of FB usage by percentage, surrounded by late-inning relievers, and the second-highest SP on the list is actually Michael Kopech at the #13 spot with 63.3% usage.

It also doesn’t hurt that Bryce’s FB is in the 98th percentile for PLV in the league. Probably a good idea to throw that thing a lot, really.

Bryce Miller is the 1st pitcher since at least 1901 to go 6+ IP and allow 4 hits or fewer in each of his first 5 career appearances

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 25, 2023

Best Moments From Yesterday

Jumpmen

It was a big night for flying zeroes on Wednesday. First up we have Marcus Stroman showing us that Pitchers Are Athletes and that PFP matters:

pic.twitter.com/gnLXhCSHu6

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 25, 2023

And then, on the west coast, it was Sam Haggerty seemingly levitating to corral an errant throw and make the tag on Ryan Noda:

And again, but slower (aka cooler):

We’re Bringing Back The Running Man

I’m not much of a dancer but if you were at the Mohegan Sun Casino back in 2012 you may have seen me on stage dancing at an Andrew WK concert, and my only move was the running man.

So I will gladly take Wander Franco’s tacit endorsement that it’s actually a super cool dance that cool people do.

Gotta be quicker than that. 😅 pic.twitter.com/DfU2U53Q3m

— Cut4 (@Cut4) May 25, 2023

What A Way With Words

The people who work in live sports commentary are amazing to me, given how hard it is to put together extemporaneous sentences at the best of times. But even they have their limits in the face of The Umpshow: