PITCH “The Break” Recap: #PutHerInTheGame

By Ruby Campos

#PutHerInTheGame

This week’s Pitch has a bit of a different premise than the past three episodes. The All-Star game is on the horizon and the Padres need a rep. The fans are really pulling for Ginny to be in the game as a video compilation at the beginning of the episode shows.

Mike is originally the Padres’ rep but after some persisting back issues he pulls out. Blip, and Ginny (and probably everyone else on the team) assume he would be the one to take his place in the game. However, Ginny gets a call and awkwardly announces to Blip and his family that she will be the one to play in the All-Star game. Blip is let down, but at least the family’s plans to go to Disney World are still intact.

Ginny almost immediately makes her case to Al. She’s too new, she doesn’t deserve to play in the All-Star game yet, and it should be Blip playing for the Padres if not Mike. She also still has those worries about fitting in with the team, she doesn’t want to get singled out like this, especially when the team is finally getting along. Al agrees with her but compares the situation to a pity-date and tells her to take the date.

Oh, also, Ginny’s mom is coming to town and she accurately predicts that her mother will be upset about the situation. She complains about spending more time with Eliot than her own daughter on this visit. This is clearly going to be an issue later on in the episode.

Family and All-Stars

Meanwhile, Blip and Evelynn and the kids have made their way to Florida and are in the process of picking which theme park they want to go to. Blip gets a phone call and excitedly announces that, due to another player’s injury, he can take a spot in the All-Star game. An argument arises when Blip upsettingly observes that Evelyn is less than thrilled at the news. However, Evelyn argues her point; She has been there for Blip for everything that has happened in his career, she has taken care of their sons when he was out playing the game, she has been willing to uproot their family’s life to move them wherever his job needs him to, and she has been his number one supporter. She makes an excellent point as to why she more than deserves to be a little upset that their family vacation just got ruined. Evelyn tells Blip to go to the game and she’ll take the boys to the theme park by herself, like always, and they’ll watch the game on TV.

While Ginny bemoans having to go to dinner with her mom, who she knows will make her feel guilty for not spending all of her time with her, Mike offers to go with her to the dinner. Ginny graciously accepts, and tells him she also invited Amelia. The more the merrier, right?

It turns out that Ginny’s mom also invited someone to dinner, and to Ginny’s surprise the guest is Kevin, the man her mother is seeing. When Kevin pleasantly tries to make some small talk and assumes Amelia and Mike are a couple, he asks them how long they have been together. Mike and Amelia (very badly) deny that they’re a couple but the moment passes when Mike asks about Kevin and Ginny’s mom. Ginny is shocked to find out the two have been together for about a year and the dinner takes a downward spiral.

Flashback to young Ginny and her mom: the two are excitedly planning for her first school dance but their spirits are shot down when Ginny’s father reminds her of the responsibilities of baseball. He forces her to make a decision between the two and Ginny chooses baseball over the spring fling.

Shortly afterwards the show gives us another flashback to teenage Ginny coming home and seeing her mother with another man. This is the moment that she begins to detach herself from her mother and puts all of her energy into playing baseball.

PITCH: L-R: Ali Larter and Kylie Bunbury in the all-new “The Break” episode of PITCH. Cr: Ray Mickshaw / FOX. © 2016 FOX Broadcasting Co.

New Recruits and Heart to Hearts

After the game, Mike, who has been struggling while he practiced, is participating in a sports broadcasting panel. He chokes when he tries to give more factual data, but changes his tactics. He defends Ginny’s playing by complimenting her strength because she goes through so much.

After making this sweet gesture for his teammate, one of the other broadcasters mentions to Mike that a Cuban catcher has just been recruited to the Padres and wants to know what his take is. Mike comes to his own defense this time, saying the player is not taking his job.

Ginny meets up with her mother and angrily inquires why she bothered to get her a ticket if she wasn’t even going to show up for the game (it turns out she was taking Kevin to the airport). The conversation takes a deeper step when her mom asks what happened between the two, because they used to be so close. While Ginny retorts that her mother always hated baseball, her mom says that baseball took her marriage and daughter away from her. Instead of bringing up what she witnessed as a child, the two come to perhaps the beginning of a better resolution to the situation when Ginny tells her she didn’t realize how hard the game was for her mother.

To pair up with the heartfelt mother-daughter resolution, Blip climbs into bed with Evelyn and tells her about the best day of his life, which happens to be when he first met Evelyn, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Clearly things are much better between our favorite couple.

The episode closes as Mike is watching the news coverage of the new recruit for the Padres and calls Ginny. Instead of bemoaning about the unavoidable troubles on the horizon, he teases her about the home run from the game and the two end up laughing and enjoying the other’s company via phone call.

Other Notes

• I was glad we got to know more about Ginny’s mother since past episode have made it clear how important her father was in her life and career. There had to have been some consequences to the family’s dynamic due to the intense commitment to the game on the father and daughter’s parts.
• I just really really really love Blip and Evelyn.
• Mike and Ginny’s relationship has been improving so quickly and nicely since the pilot. I don’t know how exactly the show is going to keep topping these sweet gestures and statements from Mike in respect to Ginny, but I know they will and I cannot wait.
• The majority of Oscar’s scenes in this episode definitely made him look super sketchy (and the ripping off the doll’s head was a little weird), and I guess it wasn’t totally wrong to think that. I can already feel the drama of the next episode.

Catch a new episode of Pitch in two weeks on Thursday at 9/8c on Fox.