Player Name: Mike Mirando
School: Islip
Position: RHP
Mike is a 2017 graduate of Islip HS. He is currently uncommitted to a college. He threw a no-hitter in his first start of the season.
He takes a slight step back as he prepares to enter his delivery. His leg kick his just above belt height, he has his back leg bent, his torso hunched over and his front foot pointed down. He gets terrific drive from his back side, and has a very good stride length. He has a long arm circle and throws from a 3/4 arm angle. He gets good extension on his pitches and falls off slightly to the first base side.
In his April 20th start against Comsewogue, he fired a CG and earned his third victory of the season. He threw 130 pitches and 68 of them were strikes, a fairly pedestrian percentage considering he only walked one batter. He sat in the 80-83 MPH range with his fastball and 69-70 MPH with his breaking ball. He threw two different breaking balls, one with less movement, resembling a slider and one had more of a traditional curveball drop. He held his velocity late into the game as well.
Although he allowed two ER, he should’ve only allowed one because a bloop single in the third inning should’ve been caught.
He was pretty predictable with his pitch sequencing. He often threw fastballs on the first pitch and threw his breaking ball when he was ahead in the count. He did get plenty of swings and misses, and struck out seven batters in the game.
The only time of the game he appeared to lose the strike zone was in the fifth inning when he walked the second place hitter and began missing high. To his credit, he found his release point and regained his composure to throw quality strikes.
He had two different pickoff moves, he showed a slower one to lure base runners into a bigger lead and a better one in which he fired the ball over to first. Still, he could work on his foot work, because it was a bit slow.
There were not many opportunities for him to display his fielding ability. One dribbler went up the first base line, in which he could have opted to let it roll but he rolled the dice and threw it–the runner beat it.
Overall, a very impressive showing against one of the better hitting teams that he will face this season. He showed that his fastball was good enough to beat most high school hitters. If he can mix in his breaking ball more, he will become a Division-II prospect.
Offensively: He went 2-for-3 in this game with a big RBI single to right center field in the sixth inning on a fastball. He is definitely more of a fastball hitter, he struck out in the fourth inning on a quality breaking ball on the outside corner.
Base Running: Not a speedster, but he is a quality base runner and he advanced to third on a wild pitch that didn’t scamper too far away from the catcher. He showed good instincts as soon as the ball hit the dirt.
