Dellin Betances not much at plate, but a hit as set-up man
Dellin Betances of the Yankees delivers a pitch in the seventh inning during a game against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Monday in Philadelphia. Credit: Getty Images / Hunter Martin
PHILADELPHIA — Seeing Dellin Betances swing a bat, in a game, for the first time since his Brooklyn high school career was something the Yankees could laugh about after Monday’s 4-2 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
The fact they needed him up there in the eighth inning, doing his best Gary Sheffield impression, with two runners on, wasn’t quite as humorous at the time.
For a team that was just swept by the Rays in a three-game series down at the Trop, the Yankees weren’t exactly in a giggly mood when they arrived on Broad Street. And once they had the chance to further pad a two-run lead, with only one out, any thought of having Betances just stand there to watch three pitches sail past were dismissed.
“At the end of the day,” Aaron Boone said begrudgingly, “they are athletes out there.”
Boone prefaced that statement by saying he’s on Team DH, and under different circumstances, he’d rather have a valuable arm like Betances stay clear of harm’s way. As for Betances, he was cool with that, too. If you assumed the Yankees’ prized setup man, who’s found his mojo again this season, was running to the bat rack for a showdown with Phillies’ reliever Yacksel Rios, you’d be mistaken.
“I was praying my time didn’t come,” Betances said, smiling. “The guys wanted me to bat, but I was praying that I just didn’t get hit or anything.”
Talking to Betances, the whole pitcher-hitting exercise really isn’t as fun as it looks on TV. But as Boone alluded to, they are competitors in addition to athletes, and they don’t want to look ridiculous, either, especially with runners in scoring position. So Betances grabbed a bat for the first time in a dozen years — in this case, a Mizuno model from Masahiro Tanaka’s collection — but turned down batting gloves from Aaron Judge.
Then he summoned that Sheffield bat-waggle from his high school days, and took two straight max-effort, Sheffield-inspired swings at a pair of fastballs that zipped past him at 97, 96. We may be a loud proponent of the universal DH, but as strikeouts go, Betances’ flailing away was wildly entertaining — as long as he shows up Tuesday afternoon without any pulled muscles.
“I was trying to do some damage,” Bentances said. “It didn’t happen.”
Fortunately for the Yankees, it appeared that all of their pitchers emerged in one piece, unlike the base-running tragedy they befell Tanaka during the Subway Series. Tanaka blew out both hamstrings like a pair of threadbare tires on his dash to the plate that night, and remains on the disabled list for what could be another two weeks.
Betances never made it as far as first, and neither did the 23-year-old rookie starter Jonathan Loaisiga, who whiffed in his two trips to the plate. Loaisiga said he hadn’t picked up a bat himself in six years, and was only hoping to make contact. The result? Three foul balls off Phillies starter Vince Velasquez. Again, these were only comedic episodes when viewed later through the prism of snapping a three-game losing streak. If any of these pitchers wound up broken, like Tanaka from two weeks earlier, the mood afterward would have been less light-hearted.
“I’m in favor of this DH thing,” Boone said. “That’s what I was thinking. My heart skipped a beat seven times now. I don’t love it.”
Boone was far more impressed by what those did on the mound rather than the plate, and both are extremely important to the Yankees for that reason. Loaisiga, in only his third major-league start, was dominant at hitter-friendly CBP, allowing just a single hit during his 5 1⁄3 scoreless innings while striking out eight. As for Betances, he got three outs as the bridge to Aroldis Chapman, who earned just his second four-out save this season.
Betances has surrendered just one hit and whiffed 24 over 14 scoreless innings in his last 14 appearances, so he’s never been more valuable to the Yankees then he is right now. There probably wasn’t a better sight Monday for Boone than watching Betances’ walk back to the dugout, smiling instead of grimacing. An Aaron Judge homer, another big hit from Giancarlo Stanton, that was the standard stuff. The Yankees needed the outliers to be uneventful.
“All in all,” Boone said, “a really good bounceback win for us.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
