Nick Castellanos HR Odds Had Big Shift After Pope Francis' Death

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Nick Castellanos has spent close to 15 seasons in the MLB thanks to his solid play, but he’ll likely be best remembered for his uncanny ability to hit home runs that either overshadowed a somber moment or coincided with an unfortunate event. It’s a trend that’s become impossible to ignore—and one that led to plenty of bettors flocking to a prop bet in the wake of the death of Pope Francis.

On August 19, 2020, former Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman was captured using a homophobic slur on a hot mic during a game and subsequently issued a somber apology that was derailed when Nick Castellanos hit “a drive into deep left field” to give Cincinnati a 4-0 lead and birth a meme that still hasn’t gotten old close to five years after it came into existence.

In 2021, Castellanos also managed to interrupt a memorial to a deceased veteran with another home run.

From that point, fans began to notice the frequency with which he managed to go deep in similar situations and on days where the headlines were dominated by a notable (and usually negative) news event—including the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the Oceangate submarine implosion, and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

How long has it been going on? Well, Castellanos hit his first home run as a professional baseball player on the day Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011.

You could argue this is simply a case of confirmation bias and find other players with similar patterns if you dug deep enough, but at this point, his reputation has taken on a life of its own.

Castellanos isn’t exactly a harbinger of doom when you consider many of those home runs were hit in the wake of the event they’re linked to, but plenty of fans have convinced themselves the man who’s averaged around 20 homers per season during his career thrives off the tragedies that seem to boost his power.

As Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports notes, that reality has been reflected in the wake of the death of Pope Francis; the odds of Castellanos hitting a home run when the Phillies play the Mets on Monday night were sitting at +720 before the Vatican announced the pontiff had passed away at the age of 88, but they’d decreased to +560 shortly before noon (they are sitting at +500 as of this writing).