Mickey’s dad got right in Zoom’s face.

“That thing you just did?” his dad said. “With your hand?”

“What thing?” Zoom asked innocently.

“That…thing,” Coach said. “After the strikeout?”

He jabbed his hand awkwardly in the air. It was a totally lame imitation of Zoom’s slash move, Mickey thought. But it got the point across.

“Don’t…ever…do…that…again,” his dad hissed.

“Ever?” Zoom said.

“Right,” Mickey’s dad said. “Ever. We don’t do that on this team. We don’t show up our opponents. Ever.”

Zoom looked quizzically at Mickey, then back to his coach.

“But that’s my new signature move!” Zoom protested. “It gets me pumped! You know, after a strikeout! Gets the adrenaline going, gets the crowd into it, gets my team-mates jacked, gets—”

“Lose it,” Mickey’s dad growled. The tip of his nose was now about three inches from Zoom’s nose. “This isn’t up for debate. Do I make myself clear?”

Yay, Dad, Mickey thought. Way to take control. Way to come down hard—even if it did take you a few weeks.

Zoom’s eyes were blazing. He stared at Coach, neither one of them blinking for several seconds.

Finally, Zoom looked away. He bent down and picked up the rosin bag. He squeezed it tightly and gazed at it as if lost in thought.

“Fine,” he said sullenly, tossing the bag down.

Without another word, Mickey’s dad turned and headed back to the dugout.

Mickey looked at Zoom and shrugged.

“Meeting adjourned, I guess,” he said.

Even though he was thrilled that his dad had finally put the big jerk in his place, Mickey wanted to say something else to Zoom.

He wasn’t sure what. But he wanted to say something encouraging, something to remind the pitcher to keep his focus, to command his fastball, to just win, baby, to keep the O’s on track for a trophy no matter how pissed he was.

But the look on Zoom’s face made it clear he was in no mood for conversation.

Zoom stalked around the mound for a moment, trying to compose himself. The Orioles could tell he was furious. So could the next batter for the Rays, who dug in nervously, then quickly stepped out, took a deep breath, and dug in again.

Zoom was throwing harder than ever before, the ball almost whistling through the air before it smacked into Mickey’s glove.

He struck the kid out on four pitches. He threw so hard that the third pitch flew over the batter’s head and crashed into the backstop with a loud THWAP! But he came back with a fastball on the inside of the plate that totally handcuffed the boy, who seemed relieved to trudge back to the dugout.

This time there was no theatrical Z slash after the strikeout. Instead, as the Orioles whipped the ball around the infield, Zoom made a point of staring in at his coach.

Ooooh, big mistake doing that, Mickey thought. Dad doesn’t go for that stuff at all.

But the Orioles had never seen Zoom throw the way he was throwing now. This isn’t even fair, Mickey thought. The Rays will be lucky to foul a pitch off, never mind get a base hit.

Zoom struck out the next batter, too, on three straight fastballs. The last one cut the heart of the plate, the kid swinging so late and looking so foolish that Mickey almost felt sorry for him.

As Zoom walked slowly off the mound, he glared at the Rays as they took the field.

On his jog back to the dugout, Mickey saw his dad shaking his head.

When everyone was on the bench, Coach said in a loud voice, “Danny, warm up. You’re pitching next inning.”

The rest of the Orioles stole glances at Zoom. Coach had delivered a message, all right. The message they’d all been waiting for. Danny was coming in earlier than usual because of Zoom’s classless showing off.

The coach who had fallen in love with Zoom’s arm and put up with all his crap from the very beginning had apparently had enough.

But it was tough to read Zoom’s reaction. He plopped down at the end of the bench again and sat hunched over with a towel draped around his head.

The Orioles failed to score in their half of the inning. It was clear that Josh Grogan had settled into a groove now, deftly mixing his fastball and changeup to keep the Orioles hitters off balance.

After taking the field in the top of the fourth, all the Orioles fielders gathered on the mound to give Danny a pep talk.

“Don’t be nervous, nerd,” Katelyn said.

“I’m not,” Danny said.

“And don’t worry about the fact that we’re clinging to a one-run lead with the season on the line,” Sammy said.

“Is this supposed to calm me down?” Danny asked.

“And don’t think about how when the Rays pull Josh, they’ll probably bring in Bobby Oneida, who we don’t hit at all,” Hunter said. “Meaning we kind of seriously need you to shut these guys down, dude.”

Danny shook his head in amazement. “And this is where you tell me there’s no pressure, right?”

“Right,” Evan said. “It’s just another game.”

Mickey couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“That did it—get out of here!” he said, taking charge and shooing the others away.

Mickey felt bad. He had screwed up by letting too many of the O’s talk to Danny. It went against his firm belief that the only two people who should ever talk to the pitcher during a game were the coach and the catcher. Otherwise, a pitcher could get overwhelmed, bombarded with too many voices giving him a different version of what Mickey called the you-da-man-but-don’t-blow-it speech.

What was it that his dad called it when too many kids were jabbering at the pitcher? Psychobabble? Mickey wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But it sounded right—at least the babble part.

He took the ball, placed it firmly in Danny’s glove, and said, “Don’t think. Just throw.”

That, Mickey thought, should be the mantra of every pitcher at this level. In fact, it should be written on T-shirts and handed out to them at the beginning of the season. And each pitcher should be required to wear it under his jersey on game day, as a reminder.

Danny, though, was already thinking too much.

He got into trouble immediately. Instead of challenging the hitters with his fastball, he tried hitting the corners of the plate and missed miserably.

The result was a walk to the first two batters and an accompanying sigh of frustration from the Orioles fielders. Then Danny got lucky when the next kid swung at a pitch in the dirt for strike three. But another walk loaded the bases. And when Danny finally decided to go directly at the hitters instead of trying to fool them, he threw a fat pitch over the plate that the Rays catcher promptly drilled to right field for a two-run single.

Just like that it was Rays 3, Orioles 2.

As he watched the meltdown, Mickey thought: Going from Zoom on the mound to Danny—especially when he’s this shaky—is like going from Yale to kindergarten. It was fun to catch Danny, since Mickey could call pitches and flash signs again. But when the pitcher was afraid to give the other team something to hit, it made for long, hot, discouraging innings.

Danny bore down and got the next two batters on a weak comebacker to the mound and a pop foul to Hunter. But the minute he walked dejectedly off the mound, Katelyn was in his ear.

“Seriously, nerd?” Katelyn said. “You’re going to start walking people now?”

“It wasn’t exactly my game plan,” Danny said, throwing his glove on the bench. “I didn’t go out there thinking, ‘Hey, let’s walk a few guys! That might be fun!’”

He watched Katelyn scowl and ball her fist. “And don’t punch me in the shoulder, either,” Danny said, flinching reflexively. “I gotta pitch.”

“Someone should punch you in the brain,” Katelyn muttered, stomping away.

But the Orioles rallied in the fifth. Whatever magic their old nemesis, Bobby Oneida, had once had was now gone as they took a 4–3 lead on back-to-back doubles by Corey and Spencer and Ethan’s single. And Danny stopped nibbling at the Rays batters when he took the mound in the sixth.

Danny’s fastball would never be intimidating, Mickey thought. But when he threw it for strikes and trusted his defense to make plays, the kid could be an effective reliever. And he was more than effective here in the sixth, getting the first two Rays batters on infield grounders and striking out the third batter to close out the win.

After the final out, Mickey punched a fist in the air and jogged out to high-five his pitcher. Just then they heard a loud war whoop coming from right field.

Looking up, they saw Katelyn sprinting toward them, a huge grin on her face, her arms opened wide.

“Talk about mood swings,” Danny murmured before Katelyn wrapped him in a bear hug and the other Orioles descended on them, laughing and clapping them on the back.

Mickey stepped back and watched the celebration. He looked at his dad, who smiled and gave him the thumbs-up sign.

Everyone knew this was a huge win. One more and another Indians loss meant they’d be tied for first place, another step closer to the championship and their goal of a shot at the mighty Huntington Yankees.

And if Zoom could get his head on straight and keep throwing as hard as he did in the third inning—when every pitch had rocked Mickey’s glove and felt like it cracked eighty on the radar gun—well, maybe the Orioles could even…

Suddenly a thought jolted him.

Where was Zoom? He wasn’t jumping up and down with the others on the field. A glance at the dugout showed he wasn’t there, either.

Mickey looked out at the parking lot. There, in the gathering dusk, he saw a black SUV pull up. A kid wearing an Orioles jersey, his head hanging down, trudged toward it. Trailing behind him were three other forlorn-looking figures.

“Guess he wanted to beat the traffic,” a familiar voice said.

Mickey turned and saw Gabe staring out at the parking lot, too.

“The boy definitely has some issues,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “But we kinda need him now, don’t we?”