Quinn Hill's two-out bases-loaded walk in eighth lifts Bayport-Blue Point over Mount Sinai in playoff thriller
Bayport-Blue Point’s Quinn Hill after drawing winning walk in bottom of the eighth inning on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Credit: George A Faella
Bayport-Blue Point ace Brady Clark had thrown his 125th and final pitch and the Phantoms trailed by two runs courtesy of a two-run Mount Sinai rally in the top of the eighth inning. Needing just three outs to secure a Suffolk Class A playoff win in the teams’ fourth meeting of the season, the Mustangs finally seemed to have put Bayport-Blue Point in a bad spot on Tuesday afternoon.
The Phantoms, however, are having a special kind of season and this was just another opportunity to write a great chapter in it. They, too, had outlasted an ace, Mount Sinai righty Chris Batuyios, and went to work on the Mustangs’ bullpen.
Bayport-Blue Point scored three times in the bottom of the inning to eke out a 5-4 triumph. Quinn Hill drew a two-out bases-loaded walk to bring in Nick Karafantis with the winning run. In a season filled with wins, the Phantoms (20-1) got their first walk-off.
“Our guys have a clutch gene in them,” Hill said. Added Logan Curran, who had two hits and a key bunt in the three-run rally, “our team has a bunch of guys who never feel uncomfortable in any situation — we do what we need to do in the moment we need to do it.”
Top-seeded Bayport-Blue Point will host a winner’s bracket game in the Conference IV double-elimination tournament against fourth-seeded Sayville on Wednesday; the Phantoms’ only loss this season was to the Golden Flashes. The No. 8 Mustangs (10-11) will be playing an elimination game at No. 5 Eastport-South Manor.
“Mount Sinai is that No. 8 seed that no one wants to play,” Phantoms coach Jim Moccio said. “The other three wins (in the regular season) were all really tight games. And Batuyios? When we faced him it was 1-0 before we broke it open and he was tough again today.”
Clark and Batuyios — St. John’s commits expected to room together in the fall — staged an authentic pitcher’s duel. The righthanded Clark went 7 1/3 innings and struck out 10 and allowed four runs. Batuyios often looked uncomfortable — even icing his shoulder between innings — but pitched seven innings, allowed two unearned runs and struck out 10.
“Chris is really good and he was dealing,” Clark said. “We got him out of the game and that was the moment. And we have guys who love the moment.”
In the eighth, Mount Sinai’s Nate Castro singled, stole second, took third on a ground out and scored the go-ahead run when JT Caruso singled to centerfield on the last of Clark’s state-mandated 125th pitch. It added an insurance run later on a Ralph Passentino double for the 4-2 lead.
Clark opened the BBP eighth with a walk and Jack McDonald lined a single to left-center to put runners at the corners.
“When he got that hit, I knew we had no chance of losing this one,” Curran said.
Karafantis’ high chop to third brought in Clark and a Mustangs fielding error allowed the Phantoms to knot the score. Curran’s sacrifice put two runners in scoring position. An intentional walk to load the bases and a strikeout set the table for Hill.
“That’s kind of been our season,” Clark said. “We finally had a chance for a walk-off and we got it.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
