Santiago Casilla

Santiago Casilla
San Francisco Giants – No. 46
Relief pitcher
Born: July 25, 1980 (1980-07-25) San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic
Bats: Right	Throws: Right
MLB debut
August 9, 2004 for the Oakland Athletics
Career statistics (through 2011)
Win-Loss	15-8
Earned run average	3.80
Strikeouts	239
WHIP	1.410
Teams
Oakland Athletics (2004–2009) San Francisco Giants (2010-present)
Career highlights and awards
World Series champion (2010)

Santiago Casilla (born July 25, 1980) is a Dominican professional baseball player. A right-handed relief pitcher, he currently plays for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball.

Baseball career

Casilla was originally signed by the Oakland A's on January 31, 2000, as an amateur free agent, and pitched from from then through 2005 under the name of Jairo Garcia. During spring training in 2006 he revealed his real name to be Santiago Casilla, and that he had used false documents which listed him as three years younger than his actual age when he first signed in 2000.

Casilla pitched small parts of 2004, 2005, and 2006 for the Athletics as a reliever. In 2007, Casilla was recalled by the Athletics from Triple-A after going 2–1 with a 4.13 ERA with 29 strikeouts in 24 innings. He stepped into a bullpen that had Huston Street, Justin Duchscherer, and Kiko Calero on the disabled list. Casilla started off well, going 2–1 with 2 saves and a 0.45 ERA in his first 16 games. But he wound up finishing the season with a 3–1 record and a 4.44 ERA in 46 games. He pitched in the A's bullpen in the 2008 and 2009 seasons with mixed success.

At the end of 2009, he was granted free agency by the A's and signed a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants for 2010. He made his Giants debut on May 21, 2010 against his former team in Oakland and remained with the team for the remainder of the season until they won the World Series. He returned to the Giants for 2011 as a member of the bullpen and took over as its closer after Brian Wilson went on the disabled list in August.

Scouting

Casilla works with a prototypical power pitcher repertoire, chiefly throwing a mid to high-90s two-seam fastball and a hard-breaking slider. He also occasionally mixes in a curveball and changeup.

External links

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)