Neftali Feliz followed up his impressive big-league debut by showing that he was human in appearance No. 2, but got back to being untouchable last night. He struck out five of the six batters he faced in two perfect innings, and now has the following video game-like numbers through four career outings:
IP ERA SO BB AVG OBP SLG 6.2 1.35 13 0 .045 .045 .182
Not bad, huh? He’s faced a total of 22 batters, striking out 13 of them while walking zero and allowing just one hit for an opponents’ batting line of .045/.045/.182. Feliz’s slider and changeup have both been extremely effective so far, but obviously his overpowering fastball has gotten most of the attention. He’s thrown his fastball nearly 80 percent of the time so far, averaging an amazing 98.8 miles per hour with the seemingly effortless pitch. Here are the top fastball velocities from pitchers who’ve logged at least five innings:
Joel Zumaya 99.3 NEFTALI FELIZ 98.8 Jonathan Broxton 97.8 Daniel Bard 96.9 Brian Wilson 96.4 Matt Lindstrom 96.3
Joel Zumaya is the only guy to throw harder than Feliz, but he’s on the disabled list again because his arm basically keeps blowing up. Of the 35 pitchers to average at least 95 mph with their fastball this season only four have done so as starters, which is interesting because Feliz was a full-time starter in the minors and still figures to join the Rangers’ rotation eventually. Ubaldo Jimenez is this year’s hardest-throwing starter at 95.9, followed by Justin Verlander and Felipe Paulino at 95.4 and Josh Johnson at 95.1. So yeah, Neftali Feliz throws kind of hard.
