The Yankees took the field on Thursday night looking to sweep the Seattle Mariners. Instead, they got their butts whooped by a score of 10-2. That’s not a fun night at the ballpark, but apparently, these are the kinds of opportunities Isiah Kiner-Falefa relishes while doing his best Shohei Ohtani impression.
IKF pitched a scoreless ninth inning. It was his third pitching appearance of the year. In his first outing on the mound in 2023, he tossed a historic eephus pitch. He didn’t do anything like that on Thursday, but he made sure to do something else we haven’t seen from a player in Yankee pinstripes for quite some time.
Here he is in the midst of tossing that goose egg to Mariners hitters:
RELIEVER OF THE YEAR SCORELESS 9TH FOR IKF pic.twitter.com/cmct0oyw1G
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 23, 2023
In the bottom of the inning, IKF was at it again, hitting this home run to prevent the Yankees from getting shutout.
PITCHERS WHO RAKE pic.twitter.com/ZjEUUfoGKW
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 23, 2023
Kiner-Falefa is the first Yankee pitcher to hit a home run since Lindy McDaniel. It last happened on September 28th, 1972.
Of course, the Universal Designated Hitter has deprived us of pitcher dingers unless Ohtani is on the mound and hitting for himself. When we think of a player dominating on the mound and going deep at the plate, he’s the only one that comes to mind these days.
But, IKF’s performance put him in an exclusive club that not even Ohtani is able to enter yet:
Times this year allowing 0 runs and hitting a Home Run in the same game
Isiah Kiner-Falefa: 1
Shohei Ohtani and all those other bums: 0 pic.twitter.com/Caqbqo2b2k— Addison (@YankeeWRLD) June 23, 2023
As it was noted in the replies to this tweet, Willi Castro also did it on April 20th. But, Castro only tossed one-third of an inning and Isiah Kiner-Falefa recorded three outs. That’s gotta count for something, right?
The main point we’re trying to make here is that IKF is better than Shohei Ohtani.
This is obviously a huge joke. Don’t send me messages about how stupid I am — I’m just trying to keep myself occupied. It’s Friday and the weather is nice, but the Yanks just got blown out and the Mets have seemingly forgotten how to play baseball. I needed this. Let me have it.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
