Palacios efficient, effective as McHi wins Game 1 against Memorial

Jaime Palacios made just one mistake and Jose Rivera sent the ball sailing over the left center-field wall for a two-run homer.

“Yeah, it was a hanging slider,” Palacios said. “It was a bad pitch.”

McAllen High’s Hayden Bortnick, left, is tagged out at home by McAllen Memorial’s Lukas Cabrera, right, during a Class 5A Region IV quarterfinals game at McAllen Memorial baseball field on Thursday, May 16, 2024 in McAllen. (Delcia Lopez | dlopez@themonitor.com)

That pitch may have been the only true mistake as Palacios threw 87 pitches over seven innings to lead the Bulldogs to a 3-2 victory over the Mustangs in Game 1 of the Region IV-5A baseball quarterfinals at McAllen Memorial. Game 2 of the best-of-three series is at 7 p.m. tonight at McAllen High.

Palacios, a 5-foot-11 junior who looks even taller inside his lanky frame, attacked the strike zone all night with precision and by after the third inning had just tossed 37 pitches. He was in complete command of his curveball, fastball and changeup. His delivery may be a little quirky and he looked to sling the ball more than a traditional windup and delivery, but it was completely effective – and powerful.

In the seventh, Palacios collected his fifth and sixth strikeouts of the night. The Bulldogs recorded their second out on a terrific gem defensively by shortstop Luis Esquivel. Palacios hit the next better, bringing the winning run to the plate. Palacios, however, caught him looking and the Bulldogs took the 1-0 series lead.

“I trust my defense and they had been making good plays the entire game. I just needed to throw strikes,” Palacios said. “At the beginning, I was nervous but after the first inning I calmed down and just did my thing.”

McAllen High head coach Eliseo Pompa said he had absolutely know thoughts of taking Palacios out of the game, even after the two run homer, which he followed by falling behind 2-0 on the next batter but still got the next three hitters. After six, he had thrown just 70 pitches.

“We’ve been working on his strength and he can go about 105-110,” Pompa said. “The nig thing was that he didn’t have many full counts, which he had done in the past. He was on tonight.

“He made one mistake but that’s one thing about him, he’s always thinking.”

The Bulldogs scored their first run in the first on a run-scoring single from Aaron Cortez and added their second run after Nate Zaragoza was hit by a pitch and came around to score on a triple from Justin Garza. Zaragoza also scored McHi’s final run and the Bulldogs had the bases loaded with one out when he lined out to right field. Garza, who was on third, tagged and tried to score but was gunned down at the plate to end the inning.

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