I gave up 19 runs* in the first inning of my softball game last Saturday. Normally, when you give up that many runs, the manager will come in and try someone else out on the mound to see if they can stop the free flowing, gaping wound you just inflicted on the team. In what can only be described as a strange sequence of events, it turns out that I, the pitcher that just gave up 19 runs, am also the manager.
I took a seat on the bench and looked myself square in the eye. I asked myself to be honest with myself. I asked if I had enough left in the tank for another inning. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Yeah, I guess… whatever.” But I could see that deep down inside, I really did have enough left in the tank. So I continued to play myself.**
We lost that game 30-8. Not bad when you consider that they scored 19 of their runs in the first inning. I think the scariest thing about it all was that I only walked one guy, and it wasn’t in the first inning.
Today was much better. I had to pitch again, and this time I only gave up 9 runs in the first inning. That dropped my ERA a fairly impressive 90 points. Find me another pitcher out there that has made such a drastic improvement from one start to the next. At this rate, I should be able to some how force the other team to spot us one run by the end of the first inning in the next game***. By the end of the season, most teams should enter the game in such a deep hole that we won’t be able to lose. It’s hard being this good.
We still lost today’s game 21-9, but I think the improvements we made, or more specifically, the improvements I made, were much more important than a win. I also genuinely feel that when our third baseman, and two of our four outfielders finally save up enough money to purchase some baseball mitts, we’ll be a lot better on defense. Don’t count us out yet, we’ve still got our eye on that 6th place trophy****. It’s ours to lose right now. We control our own destiny.
*Seriously, that’s not a misprint, I really gave up 19 runs in the first inning. That made my ERA for the inning 171. Team morale was a little low coming off the field. Nobody said it, but I could just sense it.
**Also, there was no one else on the team that even wanted to try pitching. That may have affected my overall decision.
***This is definitely not possible.
****Believe it or not, they actually have a 6th place trophy, and it’s shaped like a pumpkin. Mark it, that’s three posts in a row about pumpkins. The streak remains intact. Anyone that didn’t realize that the main focus of this post was the 6th place trophy clearly wasn’t reading the words between the lines. Yes, they are small words, but they are words none the less.
2 comments:
I was trying to come up with something supportive to say in response to giving up 19 runs in an inning.
...Still trying.
sorry to hear about your pitching. but at least it's getting better...?
it's kind of fun to try and spot the pumpkin reference. is this going to turn into that thing where every seinfeld episode has something about superman?
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