Sammy recovered quickly from his shock. After all, everyone on the team—including him—knew he was the logical choice to pitch if Zoom wasn’t coming in. Sammy had the strongest arm of any of the fielders, for one thing. And he wasn’t shy about showing it off.

How often had the Orioles seen him range far to his left at shortstop to backhand a grounder, plant his back foot like he was stomping on an anthill, then gun a throw across the diamond to get the base runner?

There were times Mickey swore that Sammy held the ball a second or two longer on those plays than he had to, just to make the throw to first more of a challenge, to see if he could still nip the runner after silently counting, One Mississippi, two Mississippi…

Sammy always insisted he never did that. But Mickey didn’t believe him.

The only reason Sammy didn’t pitch more often for the Orioles was that he happened to be the best short-stop in the league. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Mickey’s dad always said. He wasn’t about to tinker with a kid who seemed genetically engineered to play the position.

The other thing about Sammy that made him the right choice to pitch was this: he didn’t rattle easily.

Even now he seemed relatively calm as he stood on the mound and listened to Mickey go over the strategy for the next two innings.

“I don’t think you should throw your curve,” Mickey said.

“Good,” Sammy said. “Because I don’t have a curve.”

“I remember you had sort of a curve,” Mickey said.

“Sort of a curve?” Sammy said. “Do we really want to throw that in a game like this?”

“Fine,” Mickey said. “Just stick to your fastball. And mix in the changeup, all right?”

“Well,” Sammy said, “there’s a problem there, too.”

Mickey said, “Let me guess. You don’t have a changeup, either.”

Sammy nodded. “And this is no time to experiment with sort of a changeup. Not against these guys. It’ll end up in the next county.”

“Ohhh-kay,” Mickey said. “Guess we’ll go with all fastballs, then.”

Sammy grinned and rubbed up the ball. “Sounds like a plan.”

The plan got the Orioles through the fifth inning unscathed.

Sammy wasn’t a good enough pitcher to blow batters away, even with his powerful arm. There was a vast difference between making throws from short and consistently firing the ball over the plate when the game was on the line and a batter was glaring at you.

But Sammy threw hard enough—and was just wild enough—that the Twins batters couldn’t dig in and tee off, either. And the Orioles defense rose to the occasion.

Corey made a nice running catch of a drive to left-center for the first out. Then Hunter at third base charged a slow roller and scooped it bare-handed before making an off-balance throw to beat the runner at first by a step.

After each nice play, Sammy pointed at his fielders and shouted, “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!”

Mickey shook his head in wonder.

What a difference there was between Sammy’s infectious enthusiasm and willingness to credit his defense and the way Zoom seemed to regard everyone who played behind him as more of a pain in the butt than anything else.

With his confidence growing, Sammy reached back for something extra on his fastball and he struck out the next batter on four pitches, racing off the mound with a big smile.

The rest of the Orioles greeted him with high fives.

“Pretty good for a guy with one pitch,” Mickey said.

Sammy shrugged. “You have to know your limitations.”

“And yours are so numerous we couldn’t list them all here,” Katelyn said. Then she smacked him on the butt and added, “But good work out there, nerd.”

As she walked away, Sammy said, “I…think that was a compliment.”

“Or as close as you’re going to get from her,” Mickey said.

“Know what would really help now?” Sammy said, reaching for his water bottle. “If we could score some runs. Having a cushion would be nice for Mr. One Pitch.”

“Working on it,” Mickey said. “Problem is, our bats aren’t cooperating. Or maybe it’s their pitchers.”

The Orioles failed to score in their half of the fifth, as the pitcher who came on in relief of Billy Adelman turned out to have a mediocre fastball, but a mesmerizing curveball—when he could actually get it over the plate. But the Orioles were so anxious they were overswinging, and the kid set them down in order.

Sammy did his job again, and so did the Orioles defense. The Twins cleanup hitter led off with a single, but Mickey gunned him down at second when he tried to steal. The next batter popped out to Hunter in foul territory. And Corey raced in to make a shoestring catch off a fly ball to center field for the third out.

This time, Sammy pumped his fist as he sprinted to the dugout. Seeing his excitement seemed to fire up the rest of the Orioles. They were down to their last three outs—at least if they wanted to avoid extra innings. But Mickey could sense that they were determined not to blow this chance at the win.

“All right, everybody listen up,” Coach said. But the Orioles already knew exactly where this little speech was going. They had heard it before—many times.

“Let’s be patient up there,” Coach began.

“Translation: somebody draw a walk and get on base,” Hunter whispered.

“Wait for your pitch,” Coach said.

“Which, ideally, would be ball four,” Katelyn murmured.

“And remember,” Coach said, “a walk’s as good as a hit.”

“Ahh!” Ethan said. “We arrive at the crux of the matter.”

But the Orioles didn’t have to be patient. Right away, it was obvious the Twins pitcher was struggling with his control. He caught Ethan on the elbow with a curveball that didn’t quite curve. And one batter later, he threw the same pitch to Justin, who took it on his hip.

Just like that, the Orioles had runners on first and second with no outs. The Twins pitcher looked rattled, stalking around the mound red-faced and mumbling to himself. The Twins coach quickly called time to try to settle the boy down, but now the kid just barked at him.

“You can talk to him all you want, Coach,” Gabe said gleefully, “but that kid is done. Stick a fork in him. You can read it in his body language. He’ll be lucky if he can throw another strike.”

He didn’t. On a 2–0 count, Sammy reached for a fastball well off the plate and slapped a single to right field. Ethan chugged around from second with the winning run.

Final score: Orioles 4, Twins 3.

While the Twins trudged disconsolately off the field, the Orioles raced from their dugout, mobbing Ethan and Sammy and slapping hands with one another.

As Mickey joined in the celebration, he saw Abby standing near the backstop, clapping and giving him the thumbs-up sign. Something else in the backdrop of happy faces caught his eye.

Zoom was off to one side, watching it all with a wistful look.

No, Mickey thought, he’s not jumping up and down and geeking out with everyone else. But at least he’s not racing out to the parking lot with his boys, either.

A moment later, Coach waded into their midst and held up his hands for quiet.

“Got a little news flash for you guys,” he said. “Just heard this from one of our parents. Ready? The Indians lost again tonight.”

It took a second or two for the Orioles to process his words. Then they erupted in more whoops and cheers.

Now the last game of the regular season would be for the championship.

It would be Orioles vs. Indians, winner goes on to play the team with the biggest, baddest rep in the whole area.

“How sweet would that be?” Mickey found himself saying. He could see the preening Huntington Yankees now, with their gleaming new unis and shiny new bats and gloves, and their arrogant coach and his spoiled-brat kid, thinking they were the greatest team ever, God’s gift to youth baseball and…

Then he caught himself.

What were those old clichés his dad was always spouting? About playing ’em one game at a time, never looking past your next opponent, and blah, blah, blah?

Mickey knew his dad was right.

But it sure was hard to do now.