Top pitching prospect Manny Banuelos pitched another pair of scoreless innings Wednesday evening and looked as dominating as ever while doing it.
But that only ranked second for the day on the ManBan newswire.
The top story involving the soon-to-be-20-year-old phenom came courtesy of New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera, who referred to Banuelos as the best pitching prospect he has ever seen.
And the praise from Mo didn’t stop there.
“I like everything about him,” Rivera said of Banuelos.
“The makeup and how he keeps his composure. I notice situations and how you react in situations. Where you make your pitches in tough situations, where you spot your pitches, he has the ability to do that.”
That validates what we’ve been saying around here about Banuelos, and it’s the reason we don’t think he should be wasting any more bullets in the minor leagues.
Were Banuelos simply overpowering people with raw stuff, that would be one thing; that’s not what this kid is doing.
He’s pitching at a level that belies his age. In fact, he’s pitching at a level that belies Dellin Betances’ age (soon-to-be 23).
Banuelos has good command of three plus pitches—a mid-90’s fastball, a sharp curve and a changeup that reminds of an in-his-prime Johan Santana—and has no issues consistently throwing his secondary pitches for strikes when behind in the count.
Again, he’s PITCHING, not throwing.
If you didn’t know his age or his story (limited experience) and just watched him pitch, you wouldn’t think, “there’s a guy who needs more seasoning.”
If you are one of those who continues to insist that Banuelos “needs more minor league innings,” that’s your opinion and that’s fine.
But it sure sounds like Mariano Rivera disagrees with you.
You’ll forgive us for choosing to side with Mo on any issue that involves pitching in the major leagues.
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