March 23, 2023

By Montserrat Soto

Centennial Sports Journalism

DUNEDIN, Fla. - Naswell Paulino is a 22-year-old left-handed pitcher and former hitter who left his roots and hometown behind to pursue his major dream: baseball.

Just like many children in the Dominican Republic, his love for the game started at a very young age with an admiration for legend David Ortiz.

“I have played baseball since I was five. I was always good and a captain on every team I played,” said Paulino, in Spanish. “When I was 13, a scout came to watch me play and things started to get serious.”

Paulino, now a left-handed pitcher, started his career as a hitter, but later changed his mind after being encouraged by his coaches to try pitching and feeling comfortable with it.

“On my first day at the (Player Development) Complex, I introduced myself as both a batter and a hitter, and everyone laughed,” said Paulino giggling, “I was an irregular hitter, but I think I am better as a pitcher, that’s why I think I made the right decision.”

The ballplayer from San Cristobal who spent this offseason in the RA12 Puerto Rican Winter League and had six appearances amassing a 3.28 ERA, allowing four earned runs through 11 1/3 innings, and an 11.1 K/9, says he is aware of the hard competition to get to the MLB. However, the Dominican is clear on what he has to do to get a spot in the Majors.

“My best pitches are the fastball and slider, but I know that I can still improve my splitter and speed,” said Paulino. “By now, if I can’t reach 100 mph, I would rather throw a good repertoire of pitches guessing the batter to get the control over him. My mentality is to focus pitch by pitch”

Not everything is physique and technique for the young pitcher, the mind is also an important matter to his high performance training.

“We have a mental performance team here and they help us to relax; however keeping in mind what my biggest dream is, working everyday for it and having my family’s support are my main motivations to keep going towards my goal”

Although leaving home was hard, he always finds a way to have fun no matter where he goes, taking a piece of home everywhere he is at.

“I like to be around players from different backgrounds and cultures because we learn a lot from each other. I like to teach them Dominican slang such as ¿Que lo que? (What’s up) It is really fun.”