This Week in 'Pitch': Will they or won't they?

Warning: This post contains spoilers for season 1, episode 9 of “Pitch” and all episodes prior.

Do you ever wonder what it’s like for a player when he’s about to be traded? What he goes through, and what his teammates go through? Well, this show is a work of fiction, but it tries to show the viewer exactly what a franchise player might go through in the 24 hours before he could be traded.

OFF THE FIELD
“Pitch” seems to be focusing itself a bit, because there were no flashbacks in this week’s episode, and just one scene that has anything to do with on-field baseball. (I’ll buck the trend and include that scene in this section, since it’s relevant.) It’s all about Mike and his possible trade to the Chicago Cubs. No one seems particularly happy about it. Not Mike, who is extremely conflicted, not his teammates, who feel abandoned, not the fans, who also feel abandoned and angry, and not Oscar the GM, who is reluctant to let him go even though Mike says that’s what he wants.

Everyone is laying on the guilt pretty thick for Mike — no one is making it easy for him. The employees at Petco Park applaud him as he walks in, and he looks like he wants to be absorbed into the ground forever. He obviously doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, and he’s spent his entire career with the San Diego Padres, but he’s acutely aware that his time is running out and he’s got to play these last few years for himself, which means trying to play for a team that’ll give him the best chance to win a ring.

Everyone knows that Mike is about to be traded to the Cubs, and Oscar the GM and Charlie the president of baseball operations specifically do not want Mike to play that day because if he gets injured, that would blow the whole deal. But one run down in the bottom of the ninth with a sold out crowd all there to see Mike, he pretty much has to step up to the plate. Ginny engineers it when she gets the attention of a cameraman and tells Mike to put on a helmet. The crowd sees it and starts to chant his name, and Al the manager can’t say no. Mike sees three pitches, sends one of them foul, and ends the at-bat with a strikeout. Game over. Not the way he wanted to potentially end his Padres career, but the crowd doesn’t care. In one of the very few truly emotional moments this show has had, Mike steps out of the dugout and takes a curtain call to the ringing cheers of the crowd.

Later that night, Mike texts Ginny while she’s on a date (more about that in a minute) and she bails (though she’s having a great time) to meet him. He wheedles some compliments out of her, and she reveals that she wants what’s best for him, even though she’s been pretty rotten to him about waiving his no-trade clause. They have some “I’m going to miss this about you” banter, and it’s supposed to show us that they have chemistry, but the two of them just don’t have that kind of chemistry. The show is determined to do a Will-They-Or-Won’t-They storyline with them, and it’s absolutely unbelievable at every point. The two actors are great when they’re having friendly banter, but it feels forced and dumb when it goes any farther. As they leave, they share a hug that goes on too long and they almost kiss, so the show is absolutely pushing them toward a relationship. I have an urgent message for the showrunners that I simply must share: PLEASE DON’T DO THIS.

Mike thinks he’s leaving, but the deal isn’t done yet. Oscar simply doesn’t want to trade him at all, and is trying to convince Charlie that they need Mike, a 36-year-old catcher with two bad knees, on the team for a zillion reasons. We all know he’s not going to be traded, but anyone with half a baseball brain knows that this is the type of deal that gets done. Mike is old, but the Cubs want him, and they’re willing to give up a lot for him. No matter what kind of franchise player he is, you don’t turn down a trade like that. So the show is playing with a lot of fire here, trying to wrench an emotional storyline out of something that makes a lot of baseball sense. In the end, the trade falls through (duh), and Mike is staying in San Diego.

There are a few other storylines floating around in this episode. One is about Ginny and a billionaire motion capture guru named Noah. He’s putting her in a video game, and they meet when she’s wearing one of those ping pong ball suits and pitching so they can capture her moves for the game. He asks her out on the spot and she demurs, using her busy life and constant fan-hounding as an excuse. It’s clear she digs him, though, and her turn-down is pretty half-hearted. Later, he texts her an adorable video game message that features a tiny, cartooned version of Noah losing his heart, and “Princess Ginny” is the only one who can give it back to him. Later, she’s the one who ends up asking him to dinner. And to help her stay away from the madding crowds, he buys out the restaurant.

Will, Ginny’s brother, is still in the picture, and he’s convinced Blip Sanders’ wife Evelyn to invest in his sports bar idea, Screwgies, which will be using Ginny’s likeness to help sell itself. It’s still a stunningly bad idea, and Ginny’s agent, Amelia, is acutely aware of this. She keeps trying to tell everyone how bad it is, but she eventually gives up and lets the chips fall where they may. While on her date with Noah, Ginny (who has of course invested in this terrible idea) asks him for investing advice about restaurants. Noah keeps it short and sweet: don’t invest in restaurants, since they have a tremendous failure rate. Meanwhile, Evelyn realizes that there’s money missing from the ledger, but she lets Will talk his way out of it instead of shoving the iPad in his face and saying “THANKS FOR WASTING MY INVESTMENT, IDIOT.” But she knows something is wrong, and she calls Amelia to ask for help. That’s where it ends for this week, but between that and the advice that Ginny got from Noah, things are finally starting to crumble for Will.

And finally, Al the manager finally knows about his daughter, Natalie, and Oscar dating. He’s not thrilled about it, but she could do a lot worse than Oscar, right? Oscar wants her to stay instead of leaving the city to go back to her old job, but in the end she surprises both Oscar and her father: instead of taking a permanent position at the hospital where she works (she’s a doctor), she volunteers for international medical service. It’s a weird choice for the show to make, but I can understand why they’d want to cut this baggage — there’s a lot going on in the show right now, and as they get further into the season, they’ve got to focus their episode minutes on where they’re going to matter most. Unfortunately, that’s not on Oscar’s love life.

BEHIND THE SCENES
This week, Mark-Paul Gosselaar (who plays Mike Lawson) talks about his level of fandom before and after he started on “Pitch.” Before the show, he labeled himself as a casual fan. But now he understands the game, and the position of catcher, so much more than he did before. He even has a particular guy he’s modeled his character after. Hm, a popular, homer-hitting modern catcher who stayed with one club for the majority of his career. I wonder who that could be…

ZACK MORRIS VS. MIKE LAWSON
Throughout this week’s episode, Mike seems very conflicted about being traded. It’s hard to tell if he really wants it, or if he just thinks he wants it. That’s just what Zack went through when he became a rock star. He started with his band, Zack Attack, but he was of course the biggest star. (The band was named Zack Attack, after all.) And because he was the biggest star, he let his agent convince him to go solo. He thought it was what he wanted, but it wasn’t and he was miserable.

He also looked like a huuuuuge idiot. There is no time in the history of the world or even rock and roll that Zack’s outfit would have been okay. His outfit, the hair, the medallion (!?!?), and seriously, where is his shirt.

Thankfully, Mike won’t have to experience that. The trade with the Cubs fell through so he won’t ever have to know if being traded was the right thing or not. He saved himself from the baseball equivalent of wearing a sequined shirtless jacket and giant, metallic Hammer pants.

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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