Relive all the radar-gun-busting fireworks from Dellin Betances' All-Star Game performance
Dellin Betances strikes many, many people out. Perhaps you already knew this -- he's been whiffing people at frankly preposterous rates for years now, and he started off 2016 by striking out 15 in his first six innings (!).
But even if you did know this, you didn't really know. After all, those strikeouts came against regular old professional teams, full of all kinds of hitters. During the AL's 4-2 win in the All-Star Game presented by MasterCard on Tuesday night, though, there was no messing around: Betances came on in the seventh inning nursing a two-run lead and set to face nothing but the very best hitters in the game. His response? "Strikeouts," technically, but somehow that doesn't quite encapsulate the 100-mph fastball he threw past the Dodgers' Corey Seager:
Or this sequence to the Rockies' Nolan Arenado that we're assuming was cooked up in some demonic laboratory:
Just how unhittable was Betances? He managed to combine a wipeout curveball ...
How does @DBetances68 do it?
— #Statcast (@statcast) July 13, 2016
That slider was the highest-spin pitch of the #ASG (3,108 rpm). #Statcast pic.twitter.com/Z3V3R34uJL
... with some of the hottest heat MLB has seen:
Dellin Betances threw 3 pitches 100 MPH+ including his 2nd hardest pitch of the year at 101.3 MPH. ???
— Daren Willman (@darenw) July 13, 2016
Clearly, even the All-Star teams of planet Earth are no match. There's only one solution: We're going to have to come up with a higher league for Betances to pitch in, because fair is fair.
