New York Yankees reliever Miguel Castro has been nearly unhittable this season, and it doesn’t take much investigating to figure out why. The 27-year-old has a sinker that is faster than most fastballs, and his command has improved in 2022. It’s the kind of pitch that sent a hitter airborne with a wild swing last season.
It was on another level on Tuesday.
During the Yankees’ game against the Blue Jays, Castro entered in the fifth inning and proceeded to strike out four of the five batters he faced (one hit by pitch). What he did to Alejandro Kirk, though, was just cruel.
With the count full in the sixth inning, Castro unleashed a 99 mph sinker that broke 25 inches horizontally. Basically, Kirk saw the pitch as a sure ball outside only to have it end up right over the heart of the plate for Strike 3.
Miguel Castro, Ridiculous 99mph Sinker.
With 25 Inches of Run. WTF.😳 pic.twitter.com/aZafF5CcGn
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 11, 2022
Look at how confused he was. You almost never see a big-league batter start making his way to first base on a middle-middle pitch, but that sinker was almost impossible to process in real time from Kirk’s perspective. It was so filthy that only one pitch in the Statcast era had more velocity and horizontal run.
There's been only 𝗼𝗻𝗲 pitch in the Statcast era that was both faster and had more armside run (Yordano Ventura in 2016). https://t.co/PzuwAiQWO0
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) May 11, 2022
No wonder MLB fans were impressed.
