Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Freddy Peralta has had an impressive start to the 2023 season. In his two combined starts, he has tossed 12 innings while racking up 14 strikeouts and struck out seven. He has allowed just one earned run in that space, which equates to a 0.75 ERA.
One noticeable difference for Peralta this year has been his fastball velocity. His fastball averaged 92.6 MPH last summer. In the early going this spring, his velocity has increased to 93.7 MPH. He is also maintaining a higher velocity deeper into games.
During his last start against the St. Louis Cardinals, for instance, Peralta threw a career high 35 fastballs at 95 MPH or higher. He threw 102 pitches in the game and four out of his last five fastball were clocked higher than 95 MPH. The fifth fastball was exactly 95 MPH.
During this same game, Freddy Peralta also threw the hardest pitch of his career as a starting pitcher. This was a 97.8 MPH dart to Jordan Walker.
There are a few factors that may explain why Peralta is throwing harder right now.
It is early in the season. Pitchers at this point do not have a lot of mileage on their arms and tend to reasonably be fresher than they would be in the middle of the campaign. Health is another factor. Peralta missed a big chunk of last season with injury and had two separate stints on the injured list.
It will be interesting to see if Fastball Freddy can keep up this high velocity as the season progresses, but at the very least, he has been very impressive to open the 2023 season.
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