Baseball: Palm Beach Central freshman pitcher freezes Dwyer win streak

WELLINGTON – Palm Beach Central left-hander Camden McFadden had no idea he was facing a lineup stacked with four Division I commits.

Maybe that was for the best.

The 15-year-old freshman showed no fear against hot-hitting Dwyer on Tuesday, pitching into the fifth inning to lead the Broncos to a 6-5 victory that snapped the Panthers' seven-game winning streak.

"He's not a freshman," Central coach Tony Gullo said. "He is on paper, but he's not a freshman. He's a great young player who competes his tail off. You know what you're going to get every time he toes the rubber."

The Broncos climbed over .500 at 7-6 and the Panthers fell to 9-4. Dwyer coach Jordan Yamamoto was ejected in the fourth inning after running onto the field to dispute a call at second base.

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McFadden cruised through the Panthers' lineup at the start of the game, throwing three shutout innings as the Broncos built a 5-0 lead. He gave up two unearned runs in the fourth, then tired in the fifth, when Dwyer closed the deficit to 6-4. Patricio Rodriguez came on to get the final out of the inning and Charlie Houd pitched the final two innings for the save.

McFadden said his strategy was simple: "Just throw strikes, get outs, be efficient."

McFadden was one of three freshmen in Central's starting lineup, joining shortstop Gabrian Diaz and left fielder Kieran Rivera. The Broncos have only four seniors and only one, center fielder William Mencho, is a regular position player.

In a season of ups and downs, Mencho has been a model of consistency. Against Dwyer, he was 2-for-3, lining a double to right-center in the fourth inning and scoring what proved to be the decisive run. He also made an outstanding catch at the fence to save two runs. He leads the team in nearly every offensive category, including batting average (.463) and slugging percentage (.658).

"He needs a place to play," Gullo said of Mencho, who has no firm college offers. "We're reaching out trying to help him."

Historically, Palm Beach Central has been a team that improves as the season progresses, and Gullo is hoping that trend continues.

"We've been working very hard the first half but we haven't had the results that we wanted," he said. "We've been bitten by every bug -- I'm not making excuses, but we've had players with COVID, with strep throat, with mono. ... I think we still have three arms that are down. We're just trying to work our way around it.

"We have a young, quiet team and they're trying to figure it out. Hopefully something like this can help springboard us."

The Panthers, on the other hand, are a veteran team that's hardly known for being quiet. That includes Yamamoto, a former MLB pitcher who's coaching for the first time. He sprinted onto the field to argue a safe call at second after having an earlier run-in with the base umpire.

"(The runner) was clearly out, there was no ifs, ands or buts about it," Yamamoto said. "I went out there and I said, 'That call was (expletive).' Excuse my language, pardon my French, but the call was (expletive). He said, 'You'll not swear at me,' and tossed me out."

Yamamoto, who said he was never ejected as a player at any level, had no regrets about spending half the game in the stands. "I backed my team," he said. "I want to show that I'm there for them."

As for the team's lackluster showing on the heels of a seven-game winning streak, Yamamoto said, "The boys just came out flat. It's baseball. Sometimes you come out with your A stuff and sometimes you come out with your B stuff, and today was their B stuff. There was no pep in their step, no energy. As the game went on, the energy came back."

For the Panthers, however, it was too little, too late.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Baseball: Palm Beach Central freshman pitcher freezes Dwyer win streak