Jac Caglianone takes on Triple-A

Tarik Skubal and the New Math

Baseball is a mathematical game — and Tarik Skubal just threw what might be the most mathematically incomprehensible game in the long history of baseball. As someone who spends countless hours putting together baseball spreadsheets and pondering the game’s most impossible feats, I’m practically shaking with joy.

See if you can find the pattern for these five numbers: 2, 13, 0, 94, 102.5.

On Sunday against Cleveland, Tarik Skubal:

• Threw a two-hit shutout.

• Struck out 13 batters.

• Didn’t walk anybody.

• Finished with a grand total of 94 pitches.

• The last of his pitches, the 94th, was clocked at 102.5 mph.

I might not know a lot about baseball — people tell me that every day — but everything I do know about this beautiful game tells me that none of that adds up. None of it. I mean, let’s break it down.

Thirteen strikeouts require 39 pitches, minimum.

The two hits were pitches. So that makes 41.

There were 14 more outs — even with a double play, that still requires 13 more pitches.

The absolute minimum number of pitches someone could throw in a game like this is 54 — and that’s without throwing a single ball, without allowing a two-strike foul ball.

He did it in 94. It’s utterly unheard of.

Fewest pitches on record for a 13-strikeout shutout:

• Tarik Skubal, May 25, 2025: 94

• Lucas Giolito, Aug. 25, 2020, 101

• Clayton Kershaw, May 1, 2016, 101

• Greg Maddux, June 27, 1998, 102

• Madison Bumgarner, August 26, 2014, 103

And then there was that last pitch, the fastest ever recorded last pitch of a shutout, 102.6 mph, a pitch that Cleveland’s Gabriel Arias swung at roughly 47 minutes after the ball hit the mitt.

For your enjoyment, here is the handbook on how you throw a 94-pitch shutout with 13 strikeouts.

First inning

• Strikeout, Angel Martínez, 6 pitches (foul tip into the mitt)

• Strikeout, Gariel Arias, 3 pitches (swings over a changeup. He won’t be the last.)

• Infield pop-up, Jose Ramirez, 1 pitch (99 mph fastball down and in)

(Inning pitches: 10)

Second inning

• Soft comebacker, Lane Thomas, 5 pitches (97 mph fastball way up and in)

• Fly ball to center Kyle Manzardo, 1 pitch (96 mph slider)

• Flyball to left, Jhonskeny Noel, 1 pitch (low change-up)

(Inning: 7. Total pitches: 17)

Third inning

• Routine fly to right, Will Wilson, 1 pitch (97-mph fastball down the middle)

• Strikeout, Austin Hedges, 5 pitches (swings over a changeup. Won’t be the last time for Austin)

• Dribbler in front of the plate, Nolan Jones, 2 pitches (absurdly nasty slider)

(Inning: 8. Total: 25)

Fourth inning

• Strikeout, Martínez, 5 pitches (change-up in the dirt)

• Strikeout, Arias, 5 pitches (99 mph fastball over his head).

• Hard lineout to center, Ramirez, 2 pitches (Middle middle 98-mph sinker — can’t do that to Ramírez.

(Inning: 12. Total: 37)

Fifth inning

• Strikeout, Thomas, 6 pitches (Thomas put up a fight, but couldn’t catch up to the 99-mph fastball)

• Fly ball to center, Manzardo, 6 pitches (a mistake sinker, but Manzardo didn’t quite get it).

• Grounder to third, Noel, 2 pitches (fastball WAY in)

(Inning: 13. Total: 50)

Sixth inning

• Double, Wilson, 3 pitches (middle-middle sinker, nobody’s perfect)

• Strikeout, Hedges, 4 pitches (change-up again)

• Hit by pitch, Jones, 1 pitch (obviously he did not mean to hit Jones but …)

• Double play, 6-4-3, Martínez, 1 pitch (98-mph sinker)

(Inning: 9. Total: 59)

Seventh inning

• Infield pop-up, Arias, 2 pitches (change-up)

• Single, Ramírez, 2 pitches (good change-up, sometimes you just have to tip your cap)

• Strikeout looking, Thomas, 5 pitches (change-up)

• Strikeout looking, Manzardo, 4 pitches (102-mph blazer)

(Inning: 13. Total: 72)

Eighth inning

• Strikeout, Noel, 4 pitches (knuckle curveball in the dirt … because he hasn’t struck anybody out on a knuckle curve yet)

• Groundout to second, Wilson, 5 pitches (change-up)

• Strikeout, Hedges, 5 pitches (change-up for the third time)

(Inning: 14. Total: 86)

Ninth inning

• Strikeout, Jones, 4 pitches (change-up)

• Groundout to third, Martínez, 1 pitch (98 mph slider)

• Strikeout, Arias, 3 pitches (100-mph sinker, 90-mph change-up, 102.6 mph four-seam fastball).

(inning 8. Total: 94 pitches)

You only needed to see that last at-bat to understand we’re watching someone we will be talking about for many years. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: For those of us too young to have seen Sandy Koufax … we now have our Sandy Koufax.

Cruz Missile: The Hardest-Hit Homer Ever

My buddy Joshua Jay sent me the above photograph — he was there today in Pittsburgh for the Brewers-Pirates game, and he watched Oneil Cruz hit a 122.9 mph laser, the hardest hit home run of the Statcast Era.

“Man,” Josh said to his friend after the shot, “that thing was hit hard. Almost no arc.”

And then it blared on the scoreboard: “HARDEST HIT HOME RUN EVER!”

I mean, that might have been a slight overreaction. They haven’t been tracking the speed of the ball off the bat for THAT long. We’re only talking about the last 10 years.

But … yeah. Realistically, it is probably the hardest hit home run ever.

It’s fun to think about what the exit velocity was on, say, Babe Ruth’s legendary 575-foot homer … or the ball Josh Gibson hit out of Yankee Stadium … or Mickey Mantle’s 565-foot blast that gave us the first tape-measure home run … or Reggie Jackson’s blast to the moon in the 1971 All-Star Game at Tiger Stadium.

We can’t know, obviously. But we can guess. There have been three 500-foot home runs hit during the Statcast Era:

• Nomar Mazara’s 505-foot home run in Texas in 2019. It’s still the longest tracked by Statcast. It was a warm night with a 15-20 mph wind blowing out to right. His exit velocity was “only” 109.7 mph, and a number of physicists have questioned whether the ball hit at that speed could really have gone that far, even with the wind.

• Giancarlo Stanton’s savage 504-foot home run at Coors Field in 2016. He hit it at 115.8 mph … and, yes, he did hit it in the light air of Denver. “Oh boy,” the announcer said.

• C.J. Cron’s 504-mph home run at Coors Field in 2022 had a whole different arc than Stanton’s — he hit it high, and it sailed out of sight. It’s modern equivalent of Josh Gibson’s mythical home run that never landed. Cron bashed it 110 mph.

So … how hard would Ruth have had to hit a ball in Detroit to make it go 575 feet? And how strong would he have had to be to generate that much bat speed with a 44-ounce bat? Then, that one is probably more legend than fact.

But Mickey Mantle hit his tape-measure home run in front of everybody. He hit it in Washington in 1953 … it was an extremely windy day, but as Nationals owner Clark Griffith said:

I mean, to hit a ball 560-feet even with that wind, I would guess that had to be a 120-mph exit velocity.

But we’re just guessing.

That’s what’s fun about baseball, right? Oneil Cruz does something incredible in a barely meaningful game in Pittsburgh on a Sunday in late May and it conjures up visions of Mantle and Gibson and Reggie and the rest.

My buddy Josh will never forget being in the ballpark for what may very well have been the hardest home run ever hit. The estimated distance on Cruz’s shot was a comparatively modest 432 feet, but that’s because he hit it on a line at a 23-degree launch angle.

If he’d hit that same ball at 28 degrees, it probably goes 510-515 feet.

If he’d hit that ball at 28 degrees at Coors Field, it might have gone 540 or 550.

Oneil Cruz is not quite a great player. He strikes out too much, and he’s still figuring out his way as a defensive outfielder. And he plays on a going-nowhere Pirates team.

But at any moment, on any night, Cruz can take your breath away. He leads the league in stolen bases. He has six of the top 10 highest velocity hits of 2025. And he has that swing, one of the most remarkable swings in the history of baseball, and we’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Kathleen’s Corner

• The Baltimore Orioles scored a Little League home run!

• A Houston walk-off from Christian Walker!

• Surprise! Druw Jones is doing more impressive things in the minor leagues like this two-base steal for the Hillsboro Hops.

• Over in racing, Alex Palou won the Indianapolis 500. He was the first Spanish racer to accomplish the feat.