The force is strong with this one.

Since being acquired from the Kansas City Royals in exchange for John Schreiber last spring, David Sandlin has become one of the most intriguing pitching prospects in the Red Sox system. The 23-year-old is currently rated as Boston’s No. 7 prospect by Baseball America, and recently Sandlin made waves when a video of him hitting 101 mph on the radar gun was posted to social media.

But away from the baseball diamond, Sandlin says he has another claim to fame.

“I’m one of the biggest Star Wars nerds you’ll ever meet,” Sandlin said. “One of my pregame rituals is watching ‘Revenge of the Sith.’ Every night before I pitch I’ll watch it.”

Released in 2005 as the final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, ‘Revenge of the Sith’ depicts Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side and his transformation into the iconic villain Darth Vader. The film has a notably darker tone than its predecessors and Sandlin said it helps get him in the right mindset to take the mound.

“It sounds cliche but all the emotion, Anakin turns to the dark side, I think that’s the height of Star Wars,” Sandlin said. “Seeing that kind of gets me fired up and it gets me excited to pitch the next day.”

A self-described bulldog who wears his heart on his sleeve, Sandlin moved up from High-A to Double-A during his first season with the Red Sox and struck out 82 batters over 57.1 innings between the two levels. He was one of seven Red Sox prospects invited to this week’s Rookie Development Camp at Fenway Park, and he also took part in Saturday’s Fenway Fest, which he described as a special experience.

Yet while the talent is clearly there, Sandlin posted a 5.34 ERA in 2024 and also missed about a month of the season with elbow tightness. So this winter he said the focus has been on improving his strength and mobility to stay healthy while fine tuning his secondary pitches to better complement his fastball.

He also made a point to set the record straight about the dog he appears to startle in the video of his 101 mph pitch.

“That was Bailey cheering me on, trust me. She loves the baseball, we’ll be throwing it, it’ll bounce off the wall and she’ll catch it, which can be kind of a pain because it gets all slobbery,” Sandlin said of the 11-year-old border collie. “She’s the next coming of Air Bud, I’d say.”

Brian Abraham, the Red Sox’s director of player development, said Sandlin has embraced the club’s pitching program from the moment he arrived and hasn’t shied away from challenging himself. Now if he wants to take the next step towards becoming an impact arm in the majors, he’ll need to harness his enormous talent by making sure he’s consistently in the strike zone.

Or as Obi Wan Kenobi would put it, always have the high ground.

“If you’re telling guys you’re going to be throwing 100, hitters these days are good enough to hit it,” Abraham said. “So being able to challenge in the zone, being able to get ahead, throwing strikes with all his pitches, I think that will set him apart.”