Four batters. Twelve pitches. I don’t give up a hit.
When Mel waves me off the mound, I pull my hat down and walk toward the dugout, and I let myself do the thing I’ve been holding off all week.
I look.
She’s already moving toward the tunnel, head down, pen moving across her clipboard, and she doesn’t look back.
Of course she doesn’t.
***
When midafternoon rolls around, I’m in the weight room running through a lower-body circuit designed to keep my legs under me in August—trap-bar deadlifts, single-leg Romanian deadlifts, resisted lateral band walks.
Doug showed up a few minutes ago and has been moving between racks and talking low with the strength coach, hands in his pockets, taking it all in.
As much as I’ve been showing off today, showing off in the weight room is something only idiots do, so I focus on clean reps and not getting injured.
Then I hear a sharp whistle.
“Fischer.”
Logan and I are working out next to each other, and our heads both whip over to Doug. He looks between us.
“LucasFischer,” he says, doing a “come here” gesture that makes my earlier confidence tremble. Once I reach him, Doug leads me out of the weight room and down the tunnel, away from earshot.
“What a morning,” he says.
“Trying to make an impression.”
“You’re halfway there.” He walks another few steps before he continues, like he’s deciding how much to give me. “I watched the Triple-A championship tape.”
My jaw clenches. It was the best game of my life, but I don’t always like thinking about it.
“You were throwing a perfect game through nine, and Fletch pulled you at a hundred pitches.” He stops. “You didn’t fight him. You just walked off that mound like you were going for a summer stroll.”
I stand straighter. “It was the right call. Fletch said you wanted me on a pitch count in case you needed me in October. Besides, Logan closes. That’s his role.”
“Maybe.” He folds his arms. “Or maybe you’ve gotten so comfortable being the guy who sets things up that you don’t know how to be the guy who finishes.”
I pause, trying to hide my annoyance with the man who controls my fate. “You’re calling me up to be the setup man.”
“You’re right,” he says. I nod, but he’s not done. “I’m calling up a reliever with starter stuff.”
Starter stuff.I’m pretty unflappable on the mound, but a Major League GM called my pitching “starter stuff.”
I’m flapping. Hard.
Doug’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Fischer, the guys who get the call aren’t just the most talented. They’re the ones who decide they’re not handing the ball back.” He looks at me steadily. “Are you one of those guys?”
“I can be.”Can’t I?
“Then stop treating your floor like it’s your ceiling.”
“Sir?”
“Stop throwing ninety-eight.”
He lets that land.
