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Former Tennessee flamethrower Ben Joyce has been raising eyebrows and blowing up radar guns for years now, going back to his days in Knoxville.
So, on Tuesday night, when the Los Angeles Angels right-hander struck out the Dodgers’ Tommy Edman with a 105.5 mile-per-hour heater to end the top of the 9th in an eventual extra-innings loss in Anaheim, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
It was the fastest pitch thrown by any player in Major League Baseball this season and the 3rd-fastest since pitch tracking started in 2008. Not only was the pitch that fast, but it also came with pinpoint accuracy, painting the lower-inside corner of the strike zone.
For now at least, Joyce has the record for the fastest recorded strikeout in history.
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1831184906879172842
Joyce has overcome a lot in his baseball career, going back to his days at Tennessee. He tore the ulnar collateral ligament during a fall practice and was forced to have Tommy John surgery, causing him to miss his 1st season in Knoxville.
In his 1st healthy season at Tennessee as a redshirt junior, Joyce gained national attention for regularly throwing his fastball over 100 miles per hour, reaching as high as 104.
On May 1, 2022, Joyce threw the fastest recorded pitch in the history of college baseball with a 105.5 mile-per-hour fastball, so Tuesday wasn’t the 1st time that Joyce reached that speed with a pitch.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
