{"id":680871,"date":"2026-04-22T07:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680871\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:57:24","slug":"before-thursdays-nfl-draft-fernando-mendoza-threw-out-the-first-pitch-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680871\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Thursday&#8217;s NFL Draft, Fernando Mendoza threw out the first pitch in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mendoza showed off his much-celebrated right arm with a pitch that soared a little high, but was surely a strike in the hearts of Hoosier fans.<\/p>\n<p>MIAMI \u2014 As of the writing of this article, there are 43 hours left in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/sports\/nfl\/fernando-mendoza-embraces-marathon-draft-process-embarks-1st-step-nfl-career\/531-64295a46-e578-4037-a687-9d7db07ec8ed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Fernando Mendoza&#8217;s<\/a> amateur career. He may have been testing his options Tuesday night in Miami.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mendoza threw out the first pitch at the Miami Marlins game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The presumptive number one pick in Thursday&#8217;s draft is a Miami native and graduated from Christopher Columbus High School.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d0b43e6e-763e-4a26-bed4-f728b9faf1d6_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mendoza showed off his much-celebrated right arm with a pitch that soared a little high, but was surely a strike in the hearts of Hoosier fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Heisman Trophy winner and national champion Fernando Mendoza tossed out the first pitch prior to tonight&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Marlins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@Marlins<\/a> game! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OCSlrl3Kot\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/OCSlrl3Kot<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/2046721876508950960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/f17b3ef9-0730-434e-8033-007ad0bc5f9e_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mendoza led the Indiana Hoosiers to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/sports\/local-sports\/indiana-announced-as-no-1-seed-in-college-football-playoff-bracket\/531-7922a250-b6cf-4002-b8be-4e1b3f4f7311\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">undefeated season,<\/a> a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/news\/nation-world\/cfp-championship-indiana-miami\/507-6bd9b954-683c-4deb-9005-c4f7604208e8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">national championship<\/a> and was rewarded with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/sports\/ncaa\/ncaaf\/iu-fernando-mendoza-wins-heisman-trophy-bloomington-indiana-football-curt-cignetti\/531-f2921909-12f1-4bf6-83ac-3a0fc6880556\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heisman Trophy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Miami lost to the Cardinals 5-3. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/sports\/ncaa\/ncaaf\/iu-fernando-mendoza-wins-heisman-trophy-bloomington-indiana-football-curt-cignetti\/531-f2921909-12f1-4bf6-83ac-3a0fc6880556\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d8115a46-5c7d-4fb6-9ccf-cfa26a13aff4_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mendoza showed off his much-celebrated right arm with a pitch that soared a little high, but was surely&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,1816,778,58,4171,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-680871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-marlins","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-marlins","12":"tag-miamimarlins","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116447297887691498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}