Brandyn Garcia has been rocking Devin Booker cleats amid a solid campaign on the mound

It didn’t take long for Arizona Diamondbacks left-handed reliever Brandyn Garcia to become a Devin Booker fan when he was shipped here in the Josh Naylor trade with the Seattle Mariners last July.

His Booker and corresponding Phoenix Suns fandom led to him purchasing and converting Book 1 shoes into baseball cleats.

“Once I got traded here, I really bought into it, I guess. Then I tried the shoes out and they’re really comfortable,” Garcia told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke on Wednesday. “So then I decided to cleat them up and I like them. I got like two or three pairs in my locker right now.

“I want to get some more.”

 

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The 26-year-old southpaw had ample time in the second half of last season (12 appearances) to show off his customized basketball-turned-baseball cleats.

But the 2026 version of Garcia has been a much improved one and is enjoying more success, recording a 2.70 ERA through 19 appearances this season compared to a 5.84 mark in 2025 with Arizona. He even didn’t make the Opening Day roster but utilized his Triple-A Reno assignment to get right, to the tune of a 2.19 ERA over 12.1 innings in 10 appearances.

Garcia has pitched 17 scoreless outings for the D-backs this season with 9.2 strikeouts per nine innings.

Other than repping the Suns star’s footwear, Garcia also had the privilege of shooting the “first shot” at Phoenix’s game on Jan. 2 against the Sacramento Kings. Unfortunately for the new Suns fan, the ceremonial shot went in and out off the backboard.

“I didn’t airball, that’s fine,” Garcia said.

Where his actual day job is concerned, Garcia has been excellent across the board as the D-backs’ lone reliable lefty in the bullpen, a group that was lefty-less until he was called up from Reno on May 1.

He’s held lefties to a .217 batting average and righties to .156, facing a roughly even amount of each (27 lefties and 36 righties), according to FanGraphs.

“I still think I’m baseball young. So, it’s like I’m developing and the biggest thing is the more experience that I get,” Garcia said. “I got drafted three years ago. So I’ve only been in pro ball for two-and-a-half years now, I think.

“Coming here to Arizona was amazing for me personally, because (I’m) getting a different perspective on pitching, getting a different perspective on baseball in general.”

His sweeper, which was added to his repertoire around when he was drafted by the Mariners in 2023, has been key to his prolonged success and he said he made a recent grip change to continue refining that pitch. Between his secondary stuff — slider and sweeper — hitters have only managed one hit combined this year.

“We all decided that we think it’s a lot better if (batters) think I’m going to throw (the sweeper) a little harder. It’s going to be a little bit shorter (delivery), easier to control,” Garcia said. “The cutter, slider, whatever you want to call it, is brand new this year. That was something that we decided that I was going to add in the offseason and work on that just to help me get better against righties.”

While he works on his craft, who knows, maybe Booker can help a fan satisfy his shoe needs. Especially one who went through the trouble to customize the signature kicks himself.

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