PITCH “Beanball” Recap

By: Ruby Campos

Love and Beanballs

In this week’s episode we see Ginny become more integrated into the team, and the show divulges in more background information on a past relationship of hers before she entered the Major Leagues.

Episode three starts out with Mike and Amelia in bed the morning after. Any predictions about the two from the way the previous episode ended are definitely confirmed now. Amelia leaves soon after they get dressed and they agree that whatever it is that they’re doing right now should be kept secret at the moment.

We then get our weekly dose of Pitch flashbacks; this week is focused on Ginny’s budding relationship with Trevor a former fellow minor leagues player. The first scene of flashbacks is set in a bar. Trevor orders a drink for Ginny, who is with Blip and Evelyn, while she is quick to refuse a date with him claiming she doesn’t date baseball players, she accepts the drink.

Back to the present, the next game is quickly approaching and there is talk about which player will be sent back down to the Minors, since pitcher Tommy is quickly making his way to recovery. It is decided that Woo Jin will be taken down and Al says he’ll be the one to tell the player since it is part of his job. Meanwhile Oscar takes it upon himself to find an interpreter for the player and manager since Woo-Jin is Korean and does not speak Spanish.

As the game is about to proceed, Ginny has another flashback. This time Trevor tells Ginny about his plans to leave the world of baseball to pursue a college degree. Ginny is confused at first because of he is a skilled ballplayer, but he turns it around on her by telling her that she is one of the people born with that natural talent. These words seem to successfully woo Ginny because shortly after the two kiss, and Ginny urges that no one needs to know about what they’re doing.

Returning to the game, the Padres are playing the Cardinals and the teams are engaged in a sort of beanball match, meaning the pitchers aim their balls to hit whoever is up to bat. After Blip is nearly hit by the ball Ginny returns the favor and does hit the batter for the Cardinals. And after some pleading to the temporary manager, Ginny goes up to bat, knowing the rule is that the opposing team’s pitcher gets to hit the batter.

As she steps up to the plate, the audience gets yet another flashback. Ginny is playing golf with Trevor and he convinces her to let their relationship become more public. When we come back to the present again, it turns out that Trevor is the catcher for the Cardinals as she is about to get beanballed.

However, instead of getting beanballed, the Cardinal’s pitcher, nicknamed, fireballer, misses each pitch. This frustrates Ginny because she knows he avoided hitting her because she is a girl.

Back to the past: Ginny has finished watching Trevor play in one of his last Minor League games and he surprises her with news that he was traded to the Cardinals. While he claims he didn’t know the team was scouting him, Ginny believes he must have known about this for quite some time if they had been scouting him. Instead of leaving the sport and going to college, Trevor says he is in fact going to play with the Cardinals. This angers Ginny, because she feels as though she has been lied to since their very first dinner date together.

Coming back to the present, Ginny’s anger elevates at the situation as the “fireballer” continues to aim away from her and Trevor warns her to let it go. The scene ends with Ginny shoving Trevor and both teams come to their teammates’ defenses, resulting in a full on brawl between the two teams on live television.

Meanwhile, as the game has been playing out, Al calls in a friend, aka a board member for the Padres, to help him secure his job again. He uses a pretty convincing, though sneaky, argument that Ginny would end up being the one to take the blame for his being fired. He says that Ginny already has so much on her plate, so who are they to add the title as the girl who gets managers fired to it? Maxine is convinced and makes the case to the team’s owner, and is successful since Frank leaves the office to tell Al not to worry about the rumors of his firing swirling around, it has been settled. Al effortlessly puts an end to Oscar’s wild goose chase to find an interpreter, and tells Woo-Jin, in Korean, that he’s been sent back down to the minors.

Ginny runs into Trevor after the game and he apologizes to her for everything that happened when they were in Texas in the Minors. He also drops the news that his phone was hacked a while back, this is bad news for Ginny since she is the most popular person on the planet at the moment. While his apology does seem genuine, Ginny excuses herself and leaves.

Running into Mike right after, Ginny apologizes for starting the fight between the teams, although they know she doesn’t actually feel sorry. Mike gets more serious and tells his teammate that he is impressed with how she has been handling everything that has been thrown at her, because its more than any other player has had to deal with. Ginny invites Mike to a game of golf sometime, and the scene closes out with a much closer team than the first two episodes. Has Ginny finally found her place among the players?

Other Notes

• I really do enjoy the show’s mix of flashbacks in each episode. They have tended to lead up to a reveal by the close of each hour and this episode did the same. I thought the buildup to the fight on the field was spliced nicely with flashbacks to Ginny and Trevor’s relationship at its prime and then it immediately breaking down.
• While it was just a small thing at the end of the episode, I found Oscar’s last scene with his daughter Daniella to be quite sad. The reveal that Oscar and her mother were getting a divorce definitely tugged at my heartstrings and I really felt for the father and daughter. After meeting Ginny, her idol Daniella pleads, “I don’t want a good day to end like this”, as her father tries to tell her what he has been struggling to say all day.
• To end on a happier note, I loved that Tommy, who has been awful to Ginny the entire time she has been on the team, was the first player out on the field to defend his teammate when she started the fight. It was nice to finally see the two on the same side.

Be sure to catch a new episode of Pitch on Fox next Thursday at 9/8c.