Staff Report
If you were tasked with starting a high school baseball program, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better candidate for your first pick than Pennsauken’s Kelwin Batista.
Batista checked all the boxes: athletic, can hit, pitch, field, an outstanding leader and a superb student in the classroom. He’s one of the best players in terms of total package to every come through Pennsauken High.
He went 7-3 with a 1.41 ERA and 113 strikeouts in 65 innings as a pitcher as a senior this past spring, helping the Indians to 14 wins and a berth in the South Jersey Group 4 quarterfinals, and was even better as a hitter — if you can believe that. Batista hit .483 with 30 RBIs, 26 runs scored, seven home runs, six doubles and 14 walks.
For his career, Batista racked up 75 hits, including 10 home runs and 17 doubles, knocked in 48, scored 52 runs, drew 37 walks and hit .381. As a pitcher, he had an impressive 1.71 ERA in 150 innings, proving not only his effectiveness, but his durability, too. He pitched at least 33 innings in each of his final three seasons, and while most guys celebrate getting to 100 career strikeouts, he struck out 248 batters in his four seasons.
And here’s one more stat to leave you with: of the more than 2,700 pitches he threw during his career, only 103 of them went for hits by opposing hitters.
— Staff Writer Dave O’Sullivan
