Nine strikeouts and three and two thirds for de Grom, including the last eight hitter.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They're looking for fastball.

They get it.

They just never seen it this quick.

One two coming.

He's struck it out.

Nine in a row for Jacob de Grom.

That is New York Metsace, Jacob de Grom, throwing absolute gas against the Rockies this weekend.

But what's even more impressive is that DeGrom is far from alone in his domination. Pitchers have figured out how to get their fastballs faster and their sliders

nastier. And today, Jeff Passen tells us how they're all doing this and why a scientific

revolution is now threatening the game itself.

I'm Pablo Torre. It's Monday, April 19th. This is ESPN Day.

Jeff Passon, I am looking at you remotely and you don't have sleeves. What version of Jeff

Passon are we getting today? Ah, the gun show version, Pablo. You can tell that I'm bringing the 27-inch

pythons to the podcast today. Jeff Passon is a baseball insider for ESPN and author of The Arm, a book about pro

pitching, and he stopped chasing games just long enough to talk with us.

And it's going to be Hogan-esque.

I feel like this isn't an accident.

Like, did you show up to Flex? Or were you doing something beforehand?

No, I was just working out. That's all. And I try to, I try to cram things back to back as much as

possible. So worked out for an hour. I think I have pasta sauce on my face right now. Here we are,

...