Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford is in his 13th MLB season, and on Sunday, he finally got an opportunity to live out a dream. He pitched in a big-league game.
And really, it couldn’t have gone much better for him.
Crawford entered the game in the ninth inning against the Cubs with the Giants up 10 runs. It was the final game before the team headed on the road to St. Louis, so Gabe Kapler saw that inning as the perfect chance to give Crawford — who has long wanted to pitch — an opportunity to get out there and preserve the bullpen’s arms.
While almost every MLB position player is capable of throwing serious velocity, we rarely see that when they get a chance to pitch. Most position players lob batting-practice tosses in there just to get the ball in play and hopefully result in some outs. Crawford had a different idea.
He knew that he probably wouldn’t get many opportunities to pitch again, so he went up there looking to show off the arm. After allowing the first two batters to reach (a four-pitch walk and single), Crawford settled down to get out of the inning without allowing a run. He had a fastball that touched 90 mph and even worked in some curveballs and changeups.
His reaction to the career 0.00 ERA was especially great. He just had to take a playful swipe at the pitching staff.
"I always give pitchers a hard time about it not being that hard. I think I proved today that it's not."
B-Craw's got jokes 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Hanh44b8H1
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) June 12, 2023
See: Pitching is easy! OK, it’s not easy. But I do wish that more position players would handle pitching duties like how Crawford did on Sunday. If we have to see a position player pitch, it’s much more entertaining to light up the radar gun compared to tossing 45 mph rainbows.
Fans also loved Crawford’s thoughts on his pitching debut.