It was the bottom half of the second inning, the bases were loaded and Monroe ace Abel Guerrero couldn’t find the strike zone.
Mike Turo didn’t blink. He lifted Guerrero and called upon left fielder Rikeltin Batista.
Who, you might ask?
A junior right-hander that hadn’t pitched in 10 days, and that was just an inning of mop-up duty. His previous outing was in late April, three innings of relief. He hadn’t even properly warmed up.
“I felt proud,” Batista would say later, when asked what it meant to be called upon in such a situation – a four-run lead in peril, top of the lineup for defending city champion George Washington coming up.
He made Turo feel the same way.
Batista came in pounding the inside corner of the plate. He jammed leadoff man Xyruse Martinez on a full-count fastball, getting him to weakly pop up to shortstop. He followed that by fanning John Estrella on a full-count breaking ball in the dirt, pumping his right fist as he walked off the mound.
“I felt like I won the game,” said Batista, who tossed 4 2/3 masterful innings of relief, allowing three hits, striking out two and walking one.
In a way, he did. The Trojans, without slugging first baseman Alibay Barkley, hardly threatened thereafter, their best chance a bases-loaded, two-out chance in the fifth.
Monroe went on to cruise to a 5-0 victory at Old Boys High Field, moving on to the city semifinals, where it will meet No. 10 Madison in a best-of-three series beginning Friday afternoon.
The Eagles (17-2), as they had discussed prior to first pitch, pounced on starter Nestor Bautista of GW (16-3) from the start. They scored four runs on four hits, three of them for extra bases.
“We said we got to bang the ball in the beginning,” senior second baseman Henry Cartagena said.
The big blow was delivered by junior third baseman Wander Almonte, who rifled a two-run double off the wall in left field. Senior catcher Joseph Gerena and Batista also drove in runs, but it was fitting that Almonte provided the biggest blow. He arrived here from the Dominican Republic with plenty of hype, the next great Monroe star, many said.
The corner infielder started off slow, negatively affected by the frigid and rainy weather. Gradually, he improved, first with his glove than his bat. When the two citywide powers first met, in a non-league game April 4, Almonte complained it was too cold. Turo benched him. It was nippy again Tuesday, but he did his talking with his bat.
“I don’t think he’ll ever say that again,” the coach joked, later adding: “He’s gotten some big hits for us.”
Outside of Guerrero’s shaky outing, Turo couldn’t have scripted the afternoon any better. Centerfielder Melvin Garcia tracked down drives from gap to gap so effortlessly one teammate told him he looked liked Torii Hunter. Middle infielders Elias Todman and Cartagena turned a smooth 6-4-3 double play in the fourth on a slowly hit ground ball. The lineup produced, particularly early.
“They won the championship last year, so this meant a whole lot,” Cartagena said. “It felt like a championship game.”
Monroe is two wins away from a return trip to the real city final. It hasn’t necessarily been the easiest season. Before the year, Turo lost five projected starters to academic ineligibility. The Eagles lost a pair of consecutive league games for the first time in a decade.
They received the sixth seed, low for the powerhouse program, and had to play rival Lehman in the second round. Yet, here they are, one of the favorites to win their first city title in four years.
“The kids have been playing better each game,” Turo said. “They are all at the point where they are coming through. They see that light at the end of the tunnel. The Lehman game, that turned us around. We started to believe. Now to beat George Washington, they believe a lot more.”
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