well against all the righties in their lineup.”
The manager nodded and held up his fingers to indicate number thirty-two. The bench coach quickly started speaking into the bullpen phone on the wall.
I gazed around the cavernous stadium. The sound from the fans had been so energetic a few minutes ago, but now it was quiet and reserved. Like someone had died.
“Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like your UCL,” the trainer told Rafael. “We should take you up to the clubhouse for some scans…”
“I think I’m okay,” Rafael protested. “I just need to loosen up again.”
The trainer shrugged, and the catcher jogged back to the plate. Everyone stood around while Rafael took his position on the mound, raised his left knee up until it almost touched his chin, and took one long step forward to release the ball.
He cried out with pain as soon as it left his hand. The ball landed five feet in front of the plate.
The trainer nodded in confirmation. “Let’s get you inside. You’re done.”
The devastated look in Rafael’s eyes made me want to cry. This was the biggest game of his life and he injured himself before getting out of the first inning. My heart went out to him. I wanted to hug him.
Instead, I patted him on the butt like everyone else as he walked off the mound. The crowd clapped for him politely, but then the nervous buzz of conversation filled the air.
The Rangers ace was injured in the first game in the playoffs. Suddenly the team’s entire playoff run was in jeopardy.
Carter, the reliever, came jogging out of the bullpen and across the outfield. His jersey was untucked and he looked like he had just woken up from a nap. But when he reached the mound he took the baseball and nodded at me confidently.
“What’s the plan, Coach?”
While he threw some warm-up pitches I told him the general strategy I wanted him to follow. Two runners were already on base so we just needed him to pitch to contact. Try to induce a double-play. When he was warmed up, I made the slow walk back to the dugout.
Rafa was gone. Up the tunnel in the clubhouse medical room, having scans done on his elbow. I wanted to join him. To make sure he was okay, and to give him a hug now that we weren’t in front of forty thousand fans.
But we had a game to win, so I sat next to the manager.
“We need Carter to go for at least three innings,” I explained. “More would be better, but three minimum to keep from depleting the rest of our bullpen. If he can get us to the fourth we can figure it out from there.”
“No point in wearing out the bullpen if we dig ourselves into a huge hole here,” he replied gruffly.
I knew what he meant: we needed to get out of this inning first. If we gave up ten runs here then nothing else mattered.
It took Carter ten minutes to properly warm up, since the injury had occurred so suddenly. The mood in the dugout was quiet, and the players on the field stood around like statues. In the blink of an eye, all our hopes and aspirations were destroyed.
Despite starting the at-bat against Stanton with one strike, Carter walked him on four straight pitches. Now the bases were loaded with no outs. To mitigate my stress I grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds and started chewing on them, spitting the seeds out on the ground in front of me. I could see why old baseball managers used to chew tobacco for their nerves, as disgusting as it was.
The first pitch to the next batter was dribbled to the shortstop. He flipped it to second, and then it was fired to first to get the double-play. Even though it allowed a run and moved a runner over to third, that was a win as far as I was concerned, and the team in the dugout clapped and cheered.
Carter gave up a single to the next batter, which scored the run from third. But he struck out the next batter to end the inning.
“Well done,” I told him when he came back into the dugout. “All things considered, giving up two runs after what happened isn’t bad. Now we can plan a little better.” I pulled out the three-ring binder of opposition research. “This was catered to Rafael, but we can use it for you too. Next inning