velocity

“It was a huge boost of confidence to know that, one, my velocity is there, and two, making sure I was controlling all my pitches in the zone.”

When Ohtani has looked susceptible, it is when he chases breaking stuff away or gets beat up and in with velocity.

And at age 31, he continued to flash premium stuff, ranking well above league-average with a 95.4 mph average fastball velocity and 30% whiff rate.

The average velocity of his four-seam fastball was only 91 mph, down almost 2 mph from the regular season.

And with starting pitcher Jack Flaherty lacking both command and fastball velocity, Roberts had three fraught options before him.