Danny was sure he had misheard Coach.

After all, it had been loud at Eddie Murray Field when his mom dropped him off for the game, with a middle school band practicing not far from the Orioles dugout. It was even louder now as the band marched closer and launched into a spirited version of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” with the horn section blaring and the noise reverberating off the scoreboard and the outfield walls.

“I said, go warm up with Mickey,” Coach repeated. “You’re our starting pitcher.”

“Me?” Danny said, dumbfounded.

He whirled around to make sure Coach wasn’t speaking to someone else. But no one was there.

“Zoom’s sick today,” Coach said. “His mom called me an hour ago.”

“He’s…sick?” Danny managed to squeak.

Coach nodded and continued to fill out the lineup card.

“Oh, I don’t know, Coach,” Danny said, his heart hammering in his chest. “That Zoom, he’s a pretty tough kid. I bet he shows up anyway. I bet he gets here at the last minute all pumped up and ready to pitch his heart out.”

“Doubtful,” Coach said. “He’s got a hundred-and-three-degree fever.”

Danny snorted. “Ha! A hundred and three? That’s nothing for Zoom. That’s like a day at the beach for the boy! Now, when it gets to a hundred and five or six, sure, then maybe he doesn’t—”

“Plus he’s been throwing up all day,” Coach added. “‘Hurling’ is how his mom put it. Torrents of nasty, pea-green stuff. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so graphic. But that’s what she told me.”

Danny nodded weakly.

I kind of feel like hurling myself, he thought.

He looked across the field where the Yankees were warming up and groaned. The Yankees were only the best-hitting team in the whole league, with three or four boys in the middle of the batting order who looked old enough to drive tractor-trailers for a living.

To go up against all that power when you’ve been getting shelled the past few weeks…the prospect made him even more nauseous.

“You’ll be fine,” Coach said, as if reading his mind. “Just try to keep the ball down.”

Right. Keep the ball down.

Good advice.

Except…that was the whole problem. Everything Danny threw these days was coming in flat and letter-high. It was like serving it up on a tee to the batter. Like asking him beforehand, Hey, kid, where do you want the next pitch? Oh, up there? Sure, here you go….

But as he warmed up with Mickey on the sidelines, Danny was pleasantly surprised to see the ball actually going where he wanted it to go. This was somewhere around the knees, in the batter’s Bermuda Triangle, where it entices a kid to swing, but prevents him from doing much more than hitting a weak grounder.

Hmm, maybe I won’t suck today, Danny thought as he and Mickey returned to the dugout. He chuckled to himself. Listen to me. Am I Mr. Confidence or what?

When the game began and the first Yankees batter strode to the plate, Mickey and the infielders gathered around Danny.

“You got this, Danny,” Sammy said.

“Totally,” said Ethan. “You got this all the way.”

Hunter Carlson, the third baseman, tapped Danny lightly on the chest and intoned, “You the man. Yankees are going down.”

Then, from right field, came another voice, this one piercing the crowd noise. “Just don’t blow it, Gas Can!”

Mickey gazed balefully out at Katelyn. With her hands on her hips, she stared back.

“What, I can’t say anything?” she yelled. “I’m not allowed to offer encouragement? I have to stay out here the whole time and keep my mouth zipped?”

“Unbelievable,” murmured Mickey, shaking his head. “Always says the right thing, doesn’t she?”

Danny shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m good. Let’s do this.”

Once the game started, Danny discovered, with a sinking feeling, that his command wasn’t as good as it had been in practice.

Breaking news, he thought. I’m leaving the ball up again. But he still managed to retire the Yankees in order on two ground balls to first that Ethan scooped up, and a hard line drive hit directly at center fielder Corey Maduro.

And after the Orioles took a 2–0 lead in the bottom of the inning on back-to-back doubles by Hunter and Katelyn and an RBI single by Sammy, Danny again held the Yankees hitless in the second inning on a pop foul and two harmless fly balls.

Walking off the mound, he permitted himself to hope again. Could it be? Could I be finally coming out of this horrible slump?

After all, he’d just gotten past the first six Yankees batters, no small feat. Their cleanup hitter was missing, for some reason, which was a huge relief. But as Coach had reminded the Orioles, the rest of the Yankees’ “big, hairy-knuckled” hitters were definitely in the house.

In the dugout, Mickey plopped down on the bench beside him.

“Keep it up, D,” he said. “Best you’ve thrown the ball in a long time.”

Maybe, Danny thought. Or maybe he was just lucky. At times, it looked as if the Yankee batters were swinging with their eyes closed.

But all the good feelings ended in the third inning. As soon as he took the mound, Danny got himself into trouble.

He gave up back-to-back walks and a two-run double that tied the game at 2–2. Another walk and a bloop single in front of Katelyn made it 3–2 Yankees before he drilled the next batter in the thigh to load the bases.

“Here we go,” he muttered as the kid limped down to first. “The Great Collapse is on.”

Only then did Danny permit himself a quick peek at the on-deck circle. The sight shook him, as it always did.

Yes, there he was: Reuben Mendez, lazily swinging a big black bat, his shoulder muscles rippling through his navy jersey. Apparently he’d just arrived—the Orioles had seen a tan minivan scream into the parking lot, tires squealing, a few minutes earlier.

Great, Danny thought. Just what I need.

Reuben, the Yankees’ star shortstop and cleanup hitter, was the biggest kid in the league. Coaches and parents of opposing teams wondered aloud how a kid who looked big enough to play linebacker for the Ravens could be playing baseball against their precious thirteen-year-old sons and daughters.

Which was why the Yankees coach had taken to bringing a copy of Reuben’s birth certificate to every game. He’d pull it out, wave it in the air, and invite anyone to read it whenever the grumbling about his big slugger got too loud.

Adding to Reuben’s mystique was his growing reputation as a mean, angry kid.

Every player in the league had heard stories of Reuben’s antics: deliberately stepping on the foot of the opposing first baseman as he legged out a grounder; running out of the baseline to flatten opposing fielders as they circled under fly balls; tagging would-be base stealers extra hard in the face and neck when they slid into second—so hard it often left scratches and bruises.

The boy was a classic bully. Danny’s dad called him a “sociopath.” Coach called him a “loose cannon.” Whatever he was called, there was no doubt that Reuben Mendez provoked fear in every team that faced him.

As he sauntered to the plate, Mickey called time and trotted out to the mound.

“As they say, this next batter needs no introduction….” Mickey began.

Danny nodded. “I was hoping he was sick with whatever Zoom has. Parked over the toilet puking his brains out. But instead he’s the picture of health. Plus he looks even bigger than he did three weeks ago.”

“He blots out the sun,” Mickey agreed. “Keep the ball down. Bad things happen if you leave it up against this guy. Very bad things.”

Danny couldn’t stop staring in at Reuben. “What do they feed him?”

“Whatever he wants, apparently,” Mickey said. He smacked Danny in the chest with his mitt. “Okay, let’s go. Focus. You can get him.”

Sure, Danny thought. He watched Reuben take a couple of vicious practice swings. The bat seemed to whistle as it sliced through the air. The evening was cool, but Danny could feel himself starting to sweat.

As Reuben dug in, Danny saw Mickey put down one finger for a fastball and place his mitt practically on the ground as a target. I know we want to keep the ball down, Danny thought, but that’s ridiculous. That’s like a target you’d give if the Pillsbury Doughboy was up.

But Danny did what he was told. He went into his windup and fired a pitch down near Reuben’s ankles. It seemed to fool the Yankees slugger, who was so eager to show off his home-run swing that he flailed at it helplessly.

Strike one.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. We’re doing that again, he thought. He was happy to see that Mickey had the same idea. The catcher had his mitt on the ground again. Same pitch, same place, Mickey was saying.

Danny nodded, kicked, and delivered.

But this time Reuben wasn’t fooled.

He reached down and, with a quick, compact swing, hit a screaming line drive that bounced once in the outfield grass before caroming off the fence in right center as Corey and Katelyn chased it.

By the time Corey ran the ball down and fired it back in, three runs had scored and Reuben was standing on third with a smirk and shouting, “That was too easy, pitcher! Way too easy!”

With that, the rest of the Yankees began pointing at Danny and chanting, “TOO EASY! TOO EASY!” as Reuben waved his arms like an orchestra conductor and grinned wildly.

Wonderful, Danny thought. “Too Easy”—another classic nickname trotted out just to torture him.

As if Gas Can weren’t bad enough.

Just like that, the Yankees were on top, 6–2. He kicked dejectedly at the dirt and tried to regroup.

He wondered if anyone in the history of baseball had hit a ball harder than the one Reuben had just hit. That ball had been crushed. It had nearly smacked the arm of an old guy with a straw hat and shades who’d been leaning over the fence.

Wouldn’t that be just my luck? Danny thought bitterly. To serve up a crappy pitch that sends somebody’s granddad to the emergency room? But there was no time to think about that now.

As he waited for the umpire to throw him a new ball, Danny glanced into the stands and froze.

There, on the top row of the bleachers, was his mom, staring back at him with a worried expression. Danny hated that look. He’d seen it too often this season—well, at least the few times when she’d actually come to his games and seen him pitch.

What’s she doing here? Danny thought. Doesn’t Joey have a game tonight? Apparently not. Did this mean his dad might show up, too, when he got off work?

Fantastic, Danny thought. Just in time to see young Gas Can/Too Easy go up in flames again. Dad will be so proud.

But in the next moment, Coach called time and popped out of the dugout. He yelled, “Pitching change!” to the umpire and pointed at Sammy as he walked slowly to the mound.

Danny’s night was over. He hung his head as he trudged to the dugout. Just as he hit the top step, he stole one more glance at his mom. She appeared to be dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

Oh my God! he thought. Is she actually crying?

What was that old movie his parents used to watch? The one where the crusty manager of the team growls that there’s no crying in baseball?

“I’ll have to have to remind her about that,” Danny murmured to himself.

Only maybe not tonight.