H.S. BASEBALL
Grand St. 18
L.I.C. 2
The legend of Grand Street Campus’ Dellin Betances grows each time he takes the hill.The 6-9 junior, who has been dubbed “The Baby Unit,” was recently ranked 10th top junior prospect in the U.S. by Baseball America and Perfect Game USA. He showed just why yesterday; that is, he showed everybody but himself and his coach.
Betances struck out 13 Long Island City (9-4) batters and tossed a two-hit gem in the Wolves’ 18-2 pasting of L.I.C. at the winner’s Queens field. The game was called after five innings due to the PSAL mercy rule – but strangely, neither Betances nor coach Melvin Martinez were happy after the game.
“I’ve seen [Betances] pitch a lot better,” said Martinez, who has his team off to a 13-0 start. “He really didn’t have his command going.”
Betances agreed.
“I wasn’t really comfortable out there,” Betances said. “I could’ve pitched a lot better.”
Perhaps they both were unhappy with the five walks Betances allowed, but it’s hard to find anything wrong with his last two innings of work, which saw Betances strike out the side in both frames and his fastball top out at 92 mph.
One thing neither could complain about was the Wolves’ bats; they erupted for 16 hits – including three inside-the-park home runs on the cavernous field, whose dimensions are 470 feet to right and 466 straight away.
Senior first baseman Jeffrey Hernandez erased a 1-0 deficit in the bottom of the first, ripping a line drive into the right-center field gap off L.I.C. starter Kenny Pena. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, scoring Angel Otero (who walked) and himself to make it 2-1.
An inning later when Ronald Melo found the same gap and followed Alexis Castillo (who singled) home to make it 4-1, the rout had begun.