What He Just Pulled Off Is UNREAL...

Mason Miller just pulled off the trifecta. The BBWAA named him the first ever National League reliever of the year. All 30 voters put him first, and every one of those ballots was cast before the playoffs began. Plus, MLB gave him its own award too, the Trevor Hoffman National League reliever of the year. And he made the all-MLB first team. Mason Miller is so good he swept all three. And while his numbers make his year look dominant, the real story is in his performances. A story of pure unbridled skill, resilience, and even some struggle. And it starts further back than this season on August 6th of 2025. From that day until late April, Miller didn't allow a single run in the regular season. That is 34.2 innings in a row without a run. For scale, that's about half as many innings as he threw in all of 2026. He carried it into 2026 and it kept going through his first month of the season. MLB.com had it as the 8th longest run by a reliever since 1961. Only 7 relief streaks in that time have gone longer. But it ended on April 27th against the Cubs and not the way you'd expect. He came in in the ninth inning with a 9-5 lead. Matt Shaw hit a slow tapper down the line. It was ruled fair, and that call couldn't be reviewed. Dansby Swanson and PCA followed with singles, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. A ground out and a wild pitch brought in two runs, and then Miller struck out Alex Bregman to finish the inning. The Padres still won 9-7. The zero streak was over. the Padres still had to win. His answer to the streak was over. The beauty of it is you get to start another one. Through April 29th, he had a 1.17 ERA, about one earned run for every eight innings. Whip counts the walks and hits a pitcher allows per inning, and his was 0.59, sub one. That works out to fewer than six base runners for every 10 innings he pitched. He was also perfect 10 for 10 in save chances. Every time he was given a save opportunity in March and April, he delivered. On April 30th, Thomas Harrigan of MLB.com wrote that Miller still had a chance to become the 10th reliever to win a Cy Young. The piece walked through how voters could be swayed toward a reliever. And according to that same piece, a reliever hadn't won since 2003. And a month into the season, That was the conversation around Mason Miller. He pitched in 66 games this season, about four of every 10 games the Padres played. That's 11 more games than he pitched in 2024. In 2024, he threw 1,024 pitches across 55 games. Last year, it was 972 pitches in 60 games. This year, he threw 1,149 pitches, which is 177 more than he threw in 2025. The innings also climbed to 70, more than 61.2 he threw last year, or the 65 he threw in 2024. Compared to his last two seasons before this season, every single number went up this year. The games, the pitches, the innings, everything. Now just split his season at the end of July. Before August, he made 44 appearances and threw 45.2 innings. From August 1st on, he made 22 more and threw 24.1 innings. From March through July, he had a .79 ERA and a .79 whip. But in August and September, those became a 3.33 ERA and a 1.11 whip. His ERA in those last two months was more than four times what it was before them. And that's not all, but the walks also move the same way. In late April, baseball savant had him walking 4% of the hitters he faced, about one in every 25. By the end of the regular season, his walk rate was 9.6%, close to one in every 10. That's 26 walks out of the 272 hitters he faced. But that's not all. Hitters were missing less too. His whiff rate The share of swings that miss went from 56.8% in late April to 45.3% for the season. In April, more than half the swings against him came up empty. And by the end of the year, it was under half. And the saves follow the same shape. Through the end of July, he was 28 for 28. So he was perfect every single chance he got from opening day to July. But in August and September, he went 10 for 13, and all three of his blown saves came in that stretch. None of those numbers honestly tell you why. And one of those nights came on the last weekend of the regular season. On September 26th against Arizona, Miller gave up three runs and only got three outs. He allowed three hits and two walks in that inning on 24 pitches. And then the Padres opened the playoffs three days later. Even with that night in it, His full regular season ended with a 1.67 ERA, which is still very good. His whip finished at .90, which is still under one baserunner an inning. And he struck out 129 hitters in his 70 innings. He saved 38 games and 41 chances, and MLB.com had that tied for the National League lead. And that full season is what the voters had in front of them. This was the first year the Baseball Writers Association of America gave out a National League Reliever of the Year award. The three finalists were announced on November 2nd, and the next day, AJ Casavolo of MLB.com wrote that Miller would seem to be the favorite. And that winner was announced on November 11th. And of course, he won it with 30 first place votes out of 30. And since it's a brand new award, he is officially the first one to ever win it for For the National League. For the voters, it was 66 games of regular season work. But then came the playoffs, and things started to change a little bit. The Padres opened at home against the Cubs and won Game 1 of the wildcard 8-0. That next night, Gavin Sheets hits a pinch-hit home run, and the Padres won 4-1. It was a Wednesday night at Petco Park. Miller started out strong, and he threw a scoreless 9 for the first postseason save of his career, and the sweep was done. Nico Horner doubled off of him and Miller retired the other three hitters he faced. But then came the eventual World Series champions, Milwaukee, and the Brewers took Game 1 to the NLDS, 3-2, with Miller never getting into it. That brings it back to Game 2. He got through the 8th clean, and with one out in the 9th, the Padres were two outs from evening the series. His line that night? 1.2 innings. Three walks and two earned runs. All three of those walks came in the ninth inning. It went down as a blown save and the loss on a night he was asked to go for six outs only got five of them. He put it this way. The cardinal rule is you don't beat yourself. Then he explained it. A base hit with nobody on doesn't win them the game. A base hit after you walk the bases loaded does. He goes on to say, I didn't do my job today. On the pitch to Churio, he said, I was just trying to be in the strike zone. And then game three, he missed for the birth of his first child. Luckily, Jake Cronenworth homered and the Padres won that game four to three. Thanks to Michael King, the Padres won that one without Mason Miller and the season lived for one more night. Miller was back the next night for game four, another elimination game, and he threw a scoreless seventh. Fernando Tatis Jr. did hit a solo home run. But when Manny Machado hit a deep drive in the eighth, it was caught just at the wall. The Brewers won 3-1 and took the series three games to one. He had two save chances in the postseason. He converted the first one, but he blew the second. His postseason ended right along with the Padres, ending at 3.2 innings with a 4.91 ERA. Both of his postseason earned runs came on that one night in Milwaukee. But don't let that confuse you. Mason Miller is still the best closer in the NL and maybe in the entire league. That's up for debate, but I would say so. While rested, he is a generational pitcher, but he's human. And wear and tear begins to add up and sometimes it results in bad games. Unfortunately, it happened in probably the biggest game of his life so far. But I will tell you this. There is no one I would rather have closing games for us than Mason Miller. So here's the question, was Miller's slide a workload problem or just a bad stretch? You let me know in the comments down below. If you want more Padres news like this one, hit subscribe and join the almost 6,000 of us here right now. Thank you guys for watching. Have a great day.