PITTSBURGH — In his head, Rico Garcia can still hear him.

In Hawaii, as Garcia grew up, his grandfather’s voice yelled a frequent soundtrack as he pitched. Diosdado Buton Nuñeza didn’t know much about baseball. He was a bowler. But, watching his grandson pitch, Nuñeza knew one thing for sure, and he yelled it all the time.

“Hey, strike ’em out!” Nuñeza would call out.

After Nuñeza’s death at 91 in October 2024, Garcia grappled with a future in baseball that didn’t include his grandfather yelling in support of a strike. But a way to honor Nuñeza came to him before the 2025 season, and Garcia still does it after every inning — good or bad, strikeout or not, Garcia’s routine remains.

As Garcia leaves the mound, he looks to the sky, lifts his arms and crosses them in an X.

Nuñeza loved strikes. In bowling, an X is the shorthand scoring note for a strike — when a bowler knocks down all 10 pins on their first roll. So, to preserve his grandfather’s presence while he pitches, Garcia combined bowling and baseball into a subtle gesture that his family looks for during each outing.

“It’s something that’ll always stick with me,” Garcia said. “I know that he’s out there with me every single game, and I can hear him in the back of my head going, ‘Strike three!’”

Nuñeza, Garcia’s maternal grandfather, died Oct. 19, 2024, in Hawaii. He was an Army veteran, a musician, a bowler who may have recorded a perfect 300, although Garcia couldn’t recall if that was fact or legend.

He was also a cherished member of the family who loved to watch his grandson pitch, even if he didn’t play the sport himself when he was young. Nuñeza and his wife, Virginia, watched every one of Garcia’s home games for Hawaii Pacific University.

And, although Nuñeza wasn’t in a position to fly to the continental United States for Garcia’s wide-ranging professional journey, he and his wife found ways to watch Garcia at all of his minor league stops.

“They didn’t really know a whole lot what was going on,” Garcia said. “They knew when I struck someone out.”

So they’d yell and clap, at the game or from afar.

After Nuñeza’s death, it occurred to Garcia he wanted to do something to memorialize the support he had received all his life. On Garcia’s glove is Nuñeza’s name, and when he walks off the mound, the X he makes with his arms is a reminder to those left behind how much Nuñeza meant to the family.

“They kind of wait for it because they want to see that my grandpa is out there with us,” Garcia said. “It’s not just for him. It’s for my whole mom’s side, as well. He was such a huge part of our family.”

In the year and a half since Nuñeza died, Garcia has found his greatest success as a major leaguer. He bounced among several teams last year before sticking with the Orioles, and in Baltimore Garcia has become a critical part of the bullpen.

In a sense, he wishes Nuñeza was watching on television as Garcia produces these results. But, with the next breath, Garcia acknowledges that pitching in Nuñeza’s honor is something he carries “every single day,” and perhaps that weight has led to this breakout.

“They just wanted me to be happy and support me,” Garcia said of his grandparents. “Even if something didn’t happen, they’d say it’s OK. They didn’t really care about good or bad. They were happy to see me play. That was the bottom line of it.”

So, when Garcia leaves the mound, watch for his X. It will be for Diosdado Buton Nuñeza.