Ben Joyce appears to be gunning for the history books.
The Los Angeles Angels fireballing reliever Joyce revealed in a recent interview with Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com that he has set a wild goal for the 2025 campaign. Joyce already sent the Internet into a meltdown last season by throwing a 105.5 mph heater against the Los Angeles Dodgers to strike out Tommy Edman.
But Joyce is far from satisfied with that. He told Bollinger that he would like to throw a pitch even faster than 105.5 mph this coming MLB season.
“I definitely do, because I push myself physically every day to get the most out of it,” he said. “If I didn’t try, I think it would be doing myself and other people a disservice.”
The current record for the fastest pitch thrown in MLB history belongs to Aroldis Chapman, who touched 105.8 mph as a member of the Cincinnati Reds in 2010. But after another Chapman instance in 2016 (105.7 mph), the next fastest pitch in big-league history was Joyce’s 105.5 against the Dodgers. Thus, Joyce has a good chance of breaking the record altogether if he can beat his own 105.5 mark.
At 24 years old, Joyce has already dialed it up to 105 mph on multiple occasions, including against some of the game’s best hitters. He was also doing 105.5 mph back in college at Tennessee, so it seems like Joyce is both focused on and capable of claiming the all-time record for himself.
