Connor stood there frozen, the bat hovering in the air, eyes locked on Melissa.

She stood perfectly still, shaking her head from side to side, silently mouthing the word, “DON’T!”

And he didn’t.

Instead, he lowered the bat and gently tossed it in the direction of the dugout. Then he took off his batting glove, folded it in his back pocket, and slowly walked out to his position as the rest of the Orioles took the field for the bottom of the inning.

“Dude, you had us worried there,” Willie said, trotting over and handing Connor his glove. “Looked for sure like you were going to wig out and pulverize the plate.”

“Me?” Connor said with a grin. Then he closed his eyes, held out his outstretched palms, and intoned, “Ommmmm.”

“Right, you’re a swami again,” Willie said. “Okay, swami, look into the future. We gonna win this game?”

“Definitely,” Connor said. “Don’t the good guys always win?”

Well, they do in the movies, he thought. But did it happen in real life with a kid like Billy throwing lights-out heat?

After taking a practice grounder from Jordy, he looked over at Melissa, who was still standing by the dugout, snapping photos. He waited until she lowered the camera and looked his way, and then he waved. He hoped it looked like a wave of thanks.

But how do you make a wave of thanks look any different from your everyday wave? Connor wasn’t sure. Melissa seemed to get it, though. She nodded and waved back.

Mike Cutko came on in relief for the Orioles and immediately ran into trouble. He walked the first two Red Sox batters. Then, desperate to get the ball over the plate, he committed the cardinal sin of pitching: he tightened up and started aiming the ball.

Seeing a nice, fat, slow pitch headed his way, the next batter’s eyes widened with delight, and he promptly hit a drive to left field. Marty, in the outfield now that Mike was pitching, misjudged the ball, let it go over his head, and two runners crossed the plate.

Connor felt his heart sink. It was Red Sox 6, Orioles 4.

Coach was chewing even more furiously on his gum now, his jaws working up and down like twin pistons. When he called time and went out to the mound to settle Mike down, Willie and Connor huddled behind second base and exchanged uneasy glances.

“Uh, swami?” Willie said. “The good guys are in trouble.”

“A temporary setback,” Connor said. “We’re still in this.”

But he had to admit: right now the movie wasn’t turning out exactly how he thought it would.

Whatever Coach said to Mike seemed to work, however. He went back to throwing instead of aiming and blew away the next two batters. And the sixth batter hit a weak grounder to first that Jordy gobbled up easily for the final out.

In the top of the fifth inning, Billy took the mound and threw his warm-up pitches harder than ever. He threw so hard that Dylan whimpered each time the ball cracked into his mitt, taking the mitt off to shake his stinging left hand.

In the Orioles dugout, Coach watched Billy grunting on every pitch, and shook his head. “No way he can keep throwing that hard,” Coach said. “He’s going to burn his arm out.”

In fact, once they stepped in against him, the Orioles could see that Billy’s velocity was decreasing already.

Mike worked the count to 3 and 2 and went down swinging on a pretty good fastball. But Yancy roped a hard single to right. Marty followed with his usual bouncer back to the pitcher for the second out. Then Joey Zinno hit a rocket that caused the Orioles to leap off the bench and cheer—until it tracked right to the Red Sox center fielder for the third out.

They were still behind by two runs. But in the Orioles dugout, there was a flicker of hope now. At least Billy seemed mortal again. The smirk was still there, but the overpowering fastball wasn’t. And Coach was smiling his I-told-you-so smile.

“Hold them here,” he said as they hustled out to the field. “We’ll get to him next inning.”

But Mike Cutko struggled with his control again, walking the first batter on four pitches and hitting the second batter on the ankle.

As the kid hobbled to first, and the Red Sox manager called time to make sure his player was all right, Connor and Willie trotted to the mound for a conference.

Mike was normally a reliable pitcher with great control. But now he seemed agitated, pacing around and kicking at the dirt with his head down.

“I’m killing us,” he moaned.

“You’re not killing us,” Willie said, draping an arm around his shoulder. “But if you don’t put the ball over the plate, I’m going to kill you.”

Mike looked up quickly to see if Willie was kidding. But there wasn’t a hint of a smile on the second baseman’s face.

“Well, at least you didn’t put any pressure on him,” Connor said as they trotted back to their positions.

“Sometimes,” Willie said, “the direct approach works best.”

Whatever the reason, Mike seemed to come out of his funk again. He reared back and struck out the next two batters. Then he got Billy on a two-hopper to first that Jordy gloved easily before stepping on the bag. Billy didn’t even bother to run the ball out. Instead, he stopped a few feet down the base line, tore off his batting helmet in disgust, and skipped it into the Red Sox dugout.

As he walked off the mound, Mike pointed at Willie and flashed a big grin.

“You really have a way of motivating people,” Connor said as they hustled off the field.

“Learned it from my momma,” Willie said with a laugh.

“That’s how she motivates me sometimes.”

Now it was the top of the sixth, the Orioles’ last chance to score.

“Let’s go, now,” Coach said. “We got the top of the batting order up. And Billy’s on fumes.”

But for one of the few times the Orioles could recall, Coach was wrong. Connor could see that Billy was still throwing hard. Maybe not crazy hard like before, but hard enough.

Yet somehow Willie managed to coax a leadoff walk, and Carlos followed with a perfect drag bunt down the first-base line for a base hit.

Two on, no outs, Jordy Marsh coming to the plate. Now it was the Red Sox dugout that stirred uneasily. Standing on the top step, their coach rocked back and forth nervously, both hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket.

Jordy worked the count to 3 and 2 and smacked a vicious line drive to left—the hardest shot since Connor’s first-inning homer. But it was right at the left fielder, who barely had to take a step to make the catch.

On the mound, Billy raised both hands in triumph, as if to say Look at me, see how well I’m pitching? I got the batter to do that. Even his teammates rolled their eyes at that one.

Now Connor was up. As he took his last practice swings in the on-deck circle, Coach spoke to him quietly.

“You know Billy’s going to gear it up for you. Whatever he’s got left in the gas tank, he’ll use it now. Be patient. Short, compact swing.”

As Connor walked to the plate, Billy stood off to one side of the mound, rubbing up the baseball and trying to stare him down.

Amazing, Connor thought as he dug in. The kid’s arm is about to fall off, and he still has major attitude.

Billy went into his windup, kicking his left leg high, and fired a fastball down the middle. It wasn’t his best heat, but it was plenty fast enough, especially for a kid with a supposedly sore arm. But Connor was taking all the way. Strike one.

Billy’s next pitch was nearly identical, a fastball with even more zip on it, but still Connor kept the bat on his shoulder. Strike two.

Now Connor stepped out and took a couple of practice swings, trying to anticipate what Billy would throw next. This was the mental chess game between batter and pitcher that he loved so much.

Then it hit him: He wants to embarrass me. Wants to strike me out on three pitches. He’ll come back with the exact same fastball. In the exact same spot.

Which is exactly what happened.

This time Connor was on it, everything moving as it should, hips, arms, and shoulders opening in a perfect symphony of a swing. The ball soared into the gap in left-center and rolled all the way to the fence as Willie and Carlos crossed the plate.

By the time the left fielder tracked it down, Connor was flying around second base. The kid’s throw sailed over the cutoff man, and Connor kept digging around third even as Billy scrambled to retrieve the ball in front of the Red Sox dugout.

Billy snapped a throw to Dylan, who was blocking the plate with one leg. Connor went into his slide, felt a sharp jolt of pain from his rib as he hit the ground. Dylan hooked the ball into his mitt and tried for a sweep tag as Connor reached under him and grazed the plate with his left hand.

“Safe!” cried the umpire.

For a moment, Connor lay there on his back, listening to the cheers from the stands, waiting for the awful ache in his ribs to die down. Then he saw a hand reaching down to help him up.

“Nice hit,” Billy said quietly as he pulled Connor to his feet.

Connor was too stunned to speak.

Then Billy snarled at his catcher: “You can’t make a better tag than that?” and stalked back to the mound.

Connor lurched to the dugout, holding his side. Had Billy really said something nice to him? He wondered if the pain was making him hear things.

But maybe there was another side to Billy. Connor thought back to his own behavior these past few weeks. Maybe there was trouble in Billy’s life that was causing him to lash out at people.

The rest of the inning went by in a blur. To the Orioles, it looked like Billy’s arm was screaming at him now. He could barely reach the plate with his next few pitches. Somehow he got Robbie, the next batter, to fly out to center field, and Yancy grounded out to second base for the third out.

But the damage was done.

Orioles 7, Red Sox 6.

Three more outs and they’d be champions.