around me during warm-ups. We’d beaten the best team in the state. Now we just had to take care of business against Tahoma. Do that, and we’d be playing at T-Mobile Park on Friday for the state title. I tried to breathe in some of the excitement, but when you know you’re not going to play, it’s not the same. And the whole thing with Antonio was like a black cloud over my head, pushing my spirits even lower.
Then, just before the game started, Coach Vereen came over. “I had Mr. Thurman go through the scorebook. You threw ninety-three pitches against Jesuit. See what I’m saying?”
I shook my head. “Not r-really.”
“The rules say you can throw a hundred and five pitches in a day. That means you’ve got twelve left. Twelve pitches could be a couple of batters, maybe one full inning.” He paused. “If I need someone to close the game, could you do it?”
I felt like I was a character in a video game that had suddenly been booted up. All the gloom disappeared. “My arm is fine, Coach. I can p-pitch.”
“You sure? I don’t want you hurting yourself.”
“No. I’m f-fine. Really. I w-want to p-pitch.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “All right, then. Hopefully we won’t need you, but if we do . . .”
Tahoma was the home team. I sat on the bench next to Kevin as we batted in the top of the first. His right leg was tap-tap-tapping the ground, and his fingertips were drumming on his thighs. He kept stuffing his mouth with sunflower seeds and machine-gunning the shells out through his teeth.
Tahoma’s pitcher was guiding his pitches; our guys were loose and confident. Andrew . . . Jared . . . Ian—all three of them smoked the ball, and all three made outs—two line drives and a hard ground ball. That’s how baseball goes sometimes.
“You got ’em,” I said to Kevin as he spit out the final batch of sunflower shells and started toward the mound. His eyes were almost glazed over; beads of sweat lined his forehead. Coaches talk about players who rise to the occasion. There had to be guys who fall apart. Kevin had failed twice before. Was he going down a third time?
It sure looked like it. His pitches were everywhere: high, low, wide, tight. He walked the first batter, gave up a hit, and then plunked the number-three hitter in the butt. Hadley went out to calm him; the infielders shouted encouragement. Coach Vereen clapped his hands and called out, “Easy, Kevin. Easy.” You can lose a baseball game in the first inning, and we were on the verge.
With the bases loaded, Kevin grooved a fastball over the heart of the plate. Tahoma’s cleanup hitter crushed it, sending a rocket toward Jay at third. If he hadn’t stuck his glove up, the ball might have taken off his head. But he did stick his glove up and the ball smacked into the webbing. He stepped on third for the second out and whipped a throw to second base before the base runner could get back.
Triple play!
Everything stopped as spectators and players took in what had happened. Then our fans roared, and our guys hollered and slapped gloves as they ran into the dugout, huge grins on their faces. Tahoma’s players dragged themselves out to their positions, their faces like deflated balloons.
We scored twice in the top of the second, both runs coming home on a fly ball to right center that fell between the outfielders. With a two-run lead, Kevin was a little better. He threw strikes, but he still didn’t have any zip on his fastball. Tahoma managed runs in the third and the fourth, but we kept scoring. Our lead was 5–2 after three innings, then 6–3 after four.
By the bottom of the fifth, Kevin was taking deep breaths and tugging on his shoulder. The leadoff hitter popped up to short, and the next batter grounded out to first. It looked like he’d get through the inning, but the next two batters reached base, the first on a walk and the second on a line single to left. Coach Vereen had the twins warming up. He walked to the mound to talk to Kevin, his eyes going back and forth between the twins and Kevin, trying to decide who had the best chance of getting the third out. After looking to the bullpen half a dozen times, he left Kevin in.
The Tahoma batter stepped to the plate. The umpire pointed at Kevin. Hadley crouched, gave the signal. Everybody knew it was going to be a fastball, and it was. The Tahoma batter turned on it, sending a high drive to center. Ian raced back, his eyes tracking the ball. On the warning track, he stopped. I thought the ball was gone, a three-run homer. But then Ian retreated one more step and, with his back against the fence, leaped. The ball settled harmlessly into the webbing of his glove. Three more inches, and the game would have been tied, but Ian’s fielding gem had turned a home run into a long out.
Kevin hadn’t gone more than five innings in any game all season. When he reached the bench, Vereen slapped him on the back. “Way to step up.”
Marc Robosky pitched a gut-wrenching sixth. A couple of hits, a couple of walks, a sac fly. When the seventh batter struck out swinging on what would have been ball four, we cheered like crazy, but our lead had been cut to 6–5.
When it came to pitching, Tahoma was in the same spot we were in. They’d used their best starter in the afternoon game, and their second-line pitchers all looked overwhelmed by the moment. Jay smacked a one-out, run-scoring double in the top of the seventh, pushing our lead back to 7–5.
Coach Vereen clapped his hands together and then wandered over to me. “Get loose, Laz.”
Mentally, I was ready to go, but physically? The first few throws in the bullpen told me—my arm was tired and my shoulder was stiff. I fought the impulse to rush the warm-up by throwing harder; instead, I threw softer, loosening slowly.
Andrew Robosky took the mound for the bottom of the seventh, and for two batters he looked like a major-league closer, getting the first on a strikeout and the second on a soft roller to second. One more out, and Andrew would have done it. I was in the bullpen area, with a lousy view of the field, but I could see the guys on the bench hanging on to one another, ready to rush the mound.
The last out is never easy. Nerves hit Andrew. He walked the batter on four pitches. He threw two more balls to the hitter after that, and then threw a changeup that the guy ripped into right center for an RBI double.
Laurelhurst 7–Tahoma 6.
Coach Vereen had seen enough. He strode to the mound, took the ball from Andrew, and motioned to me.
I trotted out, acting as if everything was normal, but feeling the strangeness of it all. Pitching in two games in one day. Starting the first and now closing the second.
I don’t know if my arm still felt stiff, because I really didn’t feel anything. In the far distance I heard the crowd screaming, but that noise was muffled by an even louder roar from inside my head. We were one out from the title game, and it was up to me to get that out.
Hadley gave the target.
I went into my wind-up, delivered.
“Strike one!”
The ball came back. I got set. The target.
“Strike two!”
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and then everything slowed down even more. My movements, the batter’s, Hadley’s. As I went into my motion, I stayed slow, so slow, and let the ball just ease out of my hand like it was water. The bat moved into the hitting zone just as the pitch dived down and to the left.
“Strike three!”
And then the guys were on me for the second time, and the world was spinning and spinning and I felt as if I were on the greatest ride and the greatest amusement park in the whole world.