Miami native Adrian Del Castillo hits grand slam in front of family, Diamondbacks defeat Marlins

Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Adrian Del Castillo treated a sizable fan section in his hometown of Miami to a show, hitting a grand slam in a 9-6 win over the Marlins on Monday.

Del Castillo cranked a 3-1 fastball from Miami’s Adam Oller 414 feet to open the scoring in the third inning. Arizona built the inning with two hit-by-pitches and a walk.

THE MIAMI KID. pic.twitter.com/kQVL7zdHOS

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) August 19, 2024

He crushed a ball just foul three pitches earlier and worked a favorable count to unload on a heater along the outside corner. That was the 24-year-old’s first career grand slam and third home run in only nine major league games. The other two were both in the ninth inning of games for a walk-off and a game-tying dinger, respectively.

“That’s usually not a good thing — home run foul — they say strikeout comes after that,” Del Castillo said. “Definitely was not trying to strike out there. Just adjust my sights and thinking bigger part of the field on the next pitches.”

The rookie later drove in two more runs on a single to right field during the seventh inning, upping his RBIs to six. The MLB record for RBIs in a single game by a rookie is 10 from Fred Lynn and Norm Zauchin, according to StatMuse.

Arizona called Del Castillo up to fill in for Gabriel Moreno, who suffered an adductor strain on Aug. 5.

Since then, he has 14 RBIs, tied for the second most in a player’s first nine MLB games since RBIs became a stat in 1920, according to MLB research extraordinaire Sarah Langs. Only Mitchell Page in 1977 had more (15). The Diamondbacks’ previous record for RBIs in a player’s first nine games was 11 by Carlos Quentin in 2006.

Del Castillo also threw out his first MLB base stealer to complete a double play in the fourth inning and stole a base.

“Just trying to keep having fun with these guys and have to keep winning for sure,” Del Castillo said.

He played high school ball at Gulliver Prep before staying in South Florida to play for the Miami Hurricanes in college. The D-backs took him with the No. 67 pick in the 2021 MLB Draft.

Del Castillo had family attend his MLB debut in Cleveland on Aug. 7 and his first home game two days later, but he received quite the cheering section for his first major league game back in Miami.

“He had an army of people here supporting him,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “We were with him in celebration. We needed every bit of his offensive support tonight.”

The Adrian Del Castillo fan club, which is about half the fans here just demanded a curtain call from the @Dbacks catcher.

— Steve Gilbert (@SteveGilbertMLB) August 19, 2024

Welcome home, @AdrianDelCast 🙌#ProCanes | #GoCanes https://t.co/IHpujdbt7o pic.twitter.com/9pA1C5scgw

— Miami Hurricanes Baseball (@CanesBaseball) August 19, 2024

Diamondbacks keep home runs coming

The Diamondbacks have eight grand slams this season — which leads MLB — and provided more slug after Del Castillo’s four-bagger.

Joc Pederson clobbered his 20th home run of the season in the fifth inning, while Jake McCarthy broke the game open with a two-run blast in the eighth to take a 9-4 lead.

The D-backs are 34-12 this year when they hit multiple homers in a game.

Jake McCarthy – Arizona Diamondbacks (7)
pic.twitter.com/Ma5c3CvJU7

— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) August 20, 2024

“We’re about creating traffic, giving ourselves opportunities and having the right people in the right spot coming up and slug,” Lovullo said.

Diamondbacks’ next game

Arizona (70-56) snapped a three-game skid after a tough series in Tampa Bay and can start a new series winning streak on Tuesday.

Eduardo Rodriguez will take the mound against Miami’s Edward Cabrera.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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