MINNEAPOLIS — Trevor Megill threw the hardest pitch of his major league career in his Twins debut on Sunday. The official reading on the radar gun: 99.8 mph.
"Almost there," he said. "Two more tenths. I've got to get it up a little bit more to officially be in that club."
The triple-digits club. The big 1-0-0. The Ultimate Flamethrower Family.
His teammate in the next locker stall is a proud member of the club: Jhoan Duran, the rookie reliever with a 103-mph fastball.
"It's an incredible moment when you see 103," he said.
Or 100.
That athletic feat still amazes me, a human throwing a baseball 100 mph. As a kid, I marveled watching J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan shoot flames out of their hand. There's something about that number — 100 — that still feels awe-inspiring because only a small group of people on the planet can throw a baseball that is clocked in triple digits.
In the pitch-tracking era (since 2008), there have been 223 MLB pitchers to hit 100 on the radar gun, according to Baseball Savant's Statcast. Almost half of those have happened since 2018.
The Twins have had only four pitchers reach triple digits in this era: Duran, Jorge Alcala, Brusdar Graterol and Juan Morillo.
The difference between 99 mph and 100 on a radar gun is minimal and yet enormous in perception.
"That's a life goal of mine," Twins reliever Emilio Pagan said.
He is stuck on 99, which he says he recorded in a 2019 wild-card game for Tampa Bay. He touches 97 mph occasionally, but 100 remains elusive.
"Got to get there before I'm done playing," Pagan said, noting he will be a little disappointed if he never crosses that threshold.
Megill reached that holy grail in a Class AAA game for the St. Paul Saints last week. He gave up a home run to blow a save, then fired a fastball 100 mph on the first pitch to the next batter.
"Weird how that works out," he said, smiling.
Veteran starter Chris Archer's career peak velocity is 99 when he pitched for the Rays. He said 100 feels even more significant in this new era that has witnessed an uptick in velocity league-wide.
"If you throw 100," he said, "you're in a different echelon."
Duran sits comfortably in that echelon. He is one of only 13 pitchers in the past 15 years to register 103 on the radar gun.
He said he hit 100 for the first time when he was 19 years old.
"I turned around and looked at the radar in the stadium," he said. "I was really proud of myself."
Duran causes a common reflex for those in attendance when he's on the mound: He throws a pitch and then people look at the scoreboard to see how fast it measured. His teammates are curious too.
"Every time he comes in," Archer said, "we're gun watching."
Duran makes throwing 100 so normal that it's almost expected.
"When he throws a fastball at 99," Archer said, "you're like, 'What's going on? You trying to groove one in there?'"
The thing that catches reliever Tyler Duffey's attention is the fluidity of Duran's delivery.
"He's so big that it's not like that really whipping, violent 100," Duffey said. "Duran's can kind of sneak up on you, which is funny."
Funny because Duffey knows there is nothing subtle about a pitch traveling 100 mph.
"I hit 93 and then Duran comes out and hits 103," he said. "That part is kind of hard to wrap your mind around sometimes. These guys are literally throwing 10 mph harder."
Membership in the triple-digit club has expanded considerably in recent years because of improvements in science, training methods and analytics. More guys throw harder now. But 100 remains relatively exclusive.
"There are very few people who can say that they pitched in a big league game," Pagan said. "In that select group there's an even more select group of guys who touched 100 in the big leagues."
It must be a legit 100 too, no funny math. A pitch clocked at 99.9 does not count as 100 in clubhouse accounting.
"You don't round up to 100," Pagan said. "You can round up if you're at 94.8. OK, 95. But to get the triple digits, you've got to see 100 on the TrackMan [system] out of respect for the guys that can do it."
Second-year reliever Griffin Jax, who recorded his fastest pitch (97.3) last week, isn't sure how he will react if he turns around someday and sees 100 on the scoreboard.
"Give a nice fist pump or something," he said.
Joining that club should never feel routine.
