Kelvin followed up with a single, moving tony up to third base.
Noah flexed his bicep at me as I came out to the on deck circle. "This is it! I'll hit a big one and push us to ten!"
"Good luck!" I told him sincerely as he moved to the batter's box.
Noah got in the righty's side and got set. He looked steady and his hands had a firm grip on his bat. The new pitcher wasn't that much better than the original, but he didn't throw as many balls. It's not like he had great control, yet he could get it over the plate with some speed. Noah was ready, and completely focused. He connected on a good pitch, after a few fouls, sending it towards center field.
"Drop!"
"It'll drop, be ready to run!"
"Drop! Drop! Drop!"
The center fielder was sprinting forward, stretched out glove first, and dove for Noah's hit. He slid and rolled in the grass, then he stood up, holding his glove high. Caught.
"Awe."
"Shoot. That would have been a good one."
Noah's face reflected the comments I overheard. He looked at the outfielder in disbelief, shook his head, and started to walk back to the dugout. He caught me looking at him and turned his expression around to smile at me. "Tough break." He shrugged. "I was robbed just like you now." He laughed at himself, but I don't think it was out of humor. He rested his hand on my shoulder. "Help me out and drive in at least one run so I won't feel so guilty please?"
I nodded, holding up my bat. "I've got this."
He laughed and let go of me. "It's good to hear you sound so confident. It makes me feel at ease." He grabbed his bat and went inside the dugout as I headed for the batter's box.
Confident? I guess I did sound sure of myself. But I really felt that way too. These pitchers weren't difficult to figure out. The only tricky part was trying to hit the ball in what I think is the best direction. I pulled my bat back, elbow up, ready to swing at this guys pitch.
He came at me with a pitch on the inside that could have been a borderline ball, but I was intent on swinging at this first pitch, hoping to catch their team off guard. I pulled it and sent a line drive over first base and down the line. Everyone took off, including me, since it was obvious that the right fielder wasn't going to be able to catch it before it bounced.
After making sure that I could make it safely, I ran to second base without the need to slide. I turned on the base to watch the action at home plate. Tony had already scored and was watching Kelvin barrel on in. The second baseman received the throw from right field, spun all the way around and threw a bullet to his catcher, trying to get Kelvin. Too bad for them, Kelvin stepped on home plate just as the catcher caught the ball. 11-0. We did it! On the offense side at least. Now as long as Dave doesn't give up more than one run, the game will be called due to the ten run lead.
They returned to the dugout as the team celebrated and got loud. As I tried to regain my posture and proper breathing, I spotted Noah in the dugout beaming at me. I felt happy that I got some justice for him.
Coach shared some words with Mahki, giving me some more time to calm my breathing down. I don't know if they spoke about anything significant or not, but I was glad for the break. If Mahki hit the ball right after I ran to second base, I'm pretty sure my lungs would burst from the pressure. When he finally stepped up to bat, he continued to kill more time by taking all the pitches. The pitcher must have been rattled though, because he started to get more erratic and pitched away from Mahki. After four balls, Mahki jogged to first base on a walk.
Two on, two out, for Zeke. A mini déjà vu moment flashed before my eyes as I remembered the last inning where I was on second base with two outs, with Zeke up to bat. Except we had a few differences now. A new pitcher. And Mahki at first base. Unfortunately the result was the same. Identical, in fact. He had hit another fly ball to right field.
As he walked back to the dugout, I studied his movements to try and see what Noah was able to see last week when Zeke had thrown a ball in. However, I'm not Noah, so I couldn't see any difference, good or bad. He just looked like normal Zeke to me.
I jogged into the dugout and ditched my helmet for a hat and picked up my glove. Noah was already out on the field so I hurried to catch up. I wanted to express my concern more clearly this time before I forget.
I held my hand up to Julian so he wouldn't throw us grounders as I tried to talk to Noah. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as he went to throwing only to Jason.
"What's up?" Noah asked. "Are you breathing okay?"
I nodded. "I want to ask you to watch Zeke..."
"Uh, why?" Noah glanced behind him where Zeke was playing catch with Mahki.
"Do you think he could still be hurt?" I fiddled with my glove, kind of nervous mentioning this concern aloud. Noah had this thing about putting stuff out into the universe because it could become true or something.
"What? How come you came up with that idea? We saw him practice with Stanford right? He looked just fine." He looked surprise.
I kicked at the dirt. "True." I mumbled. "But just now he hit into a fly out for the second time to the same spot. I wasn't too worried, but then you talked about the ball traveling further in higher altitudes. It just doesn't feel right that I could hit a home run, but Zeke can't. At least, not in these conditions."
An odd, eerie silence filled the gap between us. The sounds of our teammates playing catch, the fans in the stands talking, and me kicking at the dirt all seemed like background music.
"You're right." Noah said behind clenched teeth. I looked up to find him in an unpleasant mood. "I'll keep a look out. I'll also say something to Dad."
I gulped. From his tone of voice, I could tell Noah was upset and slightly leaning towards anger and disappointment. "I could be wrong." I played with my glove. "Maybe he just had a bad day. You said that happens. That's how the averages get normalized. There'll be good days and bad. Zeke went 2-4. That's still good."
Noah's facial expression loosened up and relaxed into a light smile. "Yea, I said that. I don't know. Doesn't hurt to be on the lookout though."
I nodded, glad to see him return to normal.
"Hey! Get into position!" Dave hollered making me jump. I looked around and found that everyone was ready for the game to resume except for us.
I sprinted to my spot and Noah backed up to his.