Milwaukee Brewers: Josh Hader’s dominance continues

After a fantastic 2018 season, Josh Hader of the Milwaukee Brewers has carried that momentum over into the new year and continues to show us that he is the most dominant relief pitcher in baseball.

It was back during the 2017 season that Josh Hader would make his debut for the Milwaukee Brewers out of the bullpen and in his 47.2 innings pitched, he would put together very impressive numbers. In fact, because he did so well out of the pen, Hader would stay in that relief pitcher role, rather than moving to the starting rotation.

However, I am not sure that many would have predicted the sheer dominance we would see over the course of the 2018 season. The Milwaukee Brewers would rely heavily on Hader as he would throw in 81.1 innings, and over the course of those innings, he would allow just 22 earned runs, record a WHIP of 0.811 and struck out an incredible 143 batters.

This season for Hader up to this point has been no different, in fact, he’s actually been even more dominant. Hader has appeared in five games that have covered 7.2 innings and he has allowed no earned runs, just two batters to reach base and he is averaging 15.26 strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

Hader has also had some spectacular moments this season as well. Including an immaculate inning against the St. Louis Cardinals and just recently throwing 2.2 innings against the Chicago Cubs to secure the series victory and his fifth save in as many attempts.

Right now, Josh Hader is like a cheat code in a video game. If the Milwaukee Brewers have the lead in the later innings, it is all but over for the opposing team when Hader takes the mound.

The main two pitches in Hader’s arsenal are a fastball and a slider, but so far in the 2019 season, most of his damage is being done by throwing the heater. According to Brooks Baseball, Hader has thrown his fastball 96.77 percent of the time and to start the 2019 season he threw 47 straight.

Some have questioned why he is so reliant on the fastball to start the season but Hader has a simple answer for them:

"“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”"

Really the fact that he is throwing mostly fastballs to batters makes what he has done so far even more impressive. Opposing hitters know what pitch is coming and they still can’t touch Hader’s fastball.

Perhaps it is teammate Alex Wilson who summed up what we are seeing from Hader best:

"“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anybody at this level be able to throw 40 straight fastballs, or whatever, and really not be touched, harmed or even fazed.”"

What we are witnessing is truly incredible and we’ve seen the most dominant relief pitcher in all of baseball develop right before our very eyes.

With Corey Knebel out for the year and Jeremy Jeffress still stranded on the disabled list, the Milwaukee Brewers certainly don’t have the bullpen depth that they had in 2018. So once again, Josh Hader will be relied upon heavily and expected to carry this bullpen, which as we have seen, he will do in dominating fashion.