Jose “Chico” Castillo is the best fielding secondbaseman in baseball today. I may be a little prejudice as he plays for my APBA team in addition to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Soon the rest of the baseball world will catch up with Teddy Ballgame and my opinion will become an accepted fact. Castillo is a Venezuelan who played SS his whole life before the Bucs switched him to the keystone spot because they had a slick fielding shortstop in Jack Wilson. Jose is a little thicker than his fellow countrymen who’ve come to define the shortstop position: Chico Carrasquel, Luis Aparicio, Dave Concepcion, Ozzie Guillen, & Omar Vizquel. As a result of his build Jose has alot more pop in his bat. I dubbed Castillo, Chico, when Carrasquel passed away, and the nickname stuck. Chico has been watching teammate Jason Bay and has picked up right where Bay left off. Jason had a six game homer streak snapped on Monday. Castillo has homered in his last four games, but last night was the topper. Jose hit a solo shot in the 2nd, a three run 441 foot blast in the 3rd, and a double high off the centerfield wall in the 7th.
Jose Castillo 4 for 4, 2 HR, 1 2B, 6 RBI, 3 runs, 1 BB
He homered again last night, five straight games with a home run.
Alas the home run streak has come to an end at five, but not for lack of effort. Jose Castillo was 1 for 2 with a double, three RBIs, and scored the winning run against the Brewers. Castillo drove in two of his runs with sacrifice flies. Then he stepped to the plate versus Milwaukee’s closer DBow with one on, trailing by a run, and two outs in the bottom of the 9th. Jose ripped a double to center and soon scored on a Ryan Doumit single to right.
A WALKOFF DOUBLE?!?! It turns out Castillo’s 9th inning double was first ruled a home run, but after careful review the umpires sent Jose back to 2nd base. Chico’s long drive to center bounced off the top of the wall straight up into the air before coming back onto the field of play. At first glance it appeared the ball may have bounced off a concrete wall beyond the playing field. I played this over on my TIVO last night ten times and the umpires got it right. Castillo also got ESPN’s top Webgem of the Day when he caught a 4th inning over the shoulder popup. The ball went off his glove, straight up into the air, off his right hand, off his glove, off his chest, off his glove again, off his stomach, off his right arm, and into his glove, AMAZING!