This week in 'Pitch': Some parties are more fun than others

Warning: This post contains spoilers for season 1, episode 6 of “Pitch,” and all episodes before.

ON THE FIELD
Ginny has a bad start, but that’s not the catalyst for most of this week’s action. Since nearly everything this week has to do with Ginny’s life off the field, we’re going to give the “On the Field” section a break.

OFF THE FIELD
This is the first episode since the pilot where we really get a look at Ginny’s inner life and what she’s going through. We spend almost zero time on the field or even discussing baseball. It’s all about Ginny and how she’s handling everything that’s been thrown at her. (Not well, it turns out.)

The episode flashes between Ginny talking (or avoiding talking, as all TV characters do) to a therapist (played by the ever lovely Rita Wilson) and Ginny going through the last 48 hours. It starts with her signing a deal with Nike, during which she looks totally overwhelmed by the pressure everyone is putting on her. She also looks less than thrilled by the party that Nike and the ad agency are throwing for her the next night. Later that evening, she has a panic attack while looking at photos for the Nike campaign, and she calls her agent, Amelia. Amelia is sleeping with Ginny’s catcher, Mike Lawson (actually sleeping, not doing anything else), and she mentions what’s happening with Ginny as she runs out the door.

That doesn’t work out well for either of them. Mike asks if Ginny is having a panic attack during a mound visit in the middle of the aforementioned bad start, and she realizes he heard it from Amelia. So while she’s dressing for the Nike party, Ginny coldly dresses her down (while Evelyn Sanders continues to be the best and most entertaining character on this show). What the viewer sees is that Ginny is being horrible to everyone because she’s having problems she either doesn’t realize or won’t talk about. But everyone one the show just thinks she’s being horrible.

Shockingly (oh wait, no), Ginny is uncomfortable and overwhelmed at the party. That is, until she meets Cara, a waitress. The two ditch the Nike party together for a totally different kind of party. One with people her own age who aren’t constantly trying to take pictures with her. No one makes a big deal about her, and that’s exactly what she wants. There’s video games, beer pong, and dancing. Ginny ends up putting on a pair of sneakers (New Balance sneakers, oops) and using a trampoline to dunk a ball over a swimming pool, which becomes an instantly famous video. Cara gives Ginny comfortable clothes, and then they hit a taco place. Ginny is having fun with a new friend, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen her have fun before.

That ends pretty quickly. Cara drops her off at the ballpark, and Ginny goes right upstairs to apologize to her manager, the GM, and the president of baseball operations. They’re concerned about her, but not because of the dunk video. They show Ginny a video of her and Cara talking, and Ginny says she doesn’t want to do it anymore and starts to cry. She’s tired and deeply, deeply unhappy. That’s why they call in the therapist. (Cara didn’t upload the video to the internet, though. She handed it over because she was worried.)

So now we’re back in the present, and Ginny finally starts to talk to the therapist. She feels trapped by her life, the structure, and all of her responsibilities. Nothing she does feeds her own soul, it just contributes to the well being of a larger machine. Finally, Ginny says something that she’s been afraid to say: “What if I don’t want to play baseball?” Something tells me she’s going to keep playing (this is a TV show, after all), but just like the therapist says, it’s a step in the right direction.

BEHIND THE SCENES
“Pitch” takes its baseball very, very seriously. How seriously? The three cast members who play the roles of the actual players, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Kylie Bunbury and Mo McRae, are training and playing baseball anytime they’re not acting on the set. They’ve got doubles that can be filmed in the field doing what they do, but they don’t want to use them. That’s dedication.

MIKE LAWSON VS. JAKE TAYLOR
Our usual segment “Mike Lawson vs. Zack Morris” is taking a vacation this week. And that’s because Mike Lawson stumbled directly into a scene from the movie “Major League.” After he and Amelia broke up (essentially because of Ginny), Mike gets drunk and goes to his ex-wife’s house, which used to be his house. He interrupts a dinner party that she and her fiancé are throwing, which is just like what Jake Taylor did in “Major League.”

Mike handles himself much better than Jake, and so does his ex’s fiancé. Everyone gets along, there are no real awkward moments, and no one’s pointlessly rude. Mike Lawson wins!

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher