Reds Prospect Hunter Greene Sets Record With 37 Fastballs Over 100 mph

In Thursday’s Hot Clicks: Hunter Greene lights up the radar gun, John Means comes tantalizingly close to history and more.

His fastball is electric

Reds prospect Hunter Greene really brought the heat in his first start in Double A on Wednesday.

Greene, who was pitching in his first competitive game since 2018 after missing the 2019 season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and the cancelation of the 2020 minor league season, allowed three hits and one run over five innings of work for the Chattanooga Lookouts. He struck out eight and didn’t issue a walk. The big story, though, was his velocity.

Greene threw a total of 71 pitches, 43 of which were fastballs and 37 of which were over 100 mph. According to the Lookouts, that’s the most pitches with triple-digit velocity in a single game by a pitcher in the majors or minors since the introduction of MLB’s Statcast system in 2015.

Throwing more than half of your pitches over 100 is ridiculous—so ridiculous, in fact, that Greene threw more triple-digit heaters than almost any MLB starter has over the past six years combined. In the Statcast era, only 10 pitchers have thrown more than 37 fastballs over 100 mph in games they’ve started.

(Diego Castillo is a reliever now but he threw 44 triple-digit pitches in the 17 games he started in 2018 and 2019.)

Greene, a 6' 5", 230-pound righthander, was the No. 2 pick in the 2017 MLB draft. He was ranked the 21st-best prospect in all of baseball before the 2018 season but his star has faded a bit in recent years. His ability to light up the radar gun has never been in doubt, though. If he keeps pitching like he did on Wednesday, he’ll be in the majors before too long. 

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