Pitch Perfect(82)

The Felons had three hits for their one run, and one walk. The Yankees were showing zeroes. All zeroes. No base on balls. No hits. Nothing.

She stared at Jamal, and he must have seen her comprehension because he gave her a wide-eyed nod. As they watched, Tucker threw the third strike, and the Yankees were out for the fifth.

Emmy sat down in the chair next to Jamal and scrubbed both hands over her face, her attention now locked on the live feed.

“Four more innings,” she remarked, her tone edging with excitement. “I mean…a lot of stuff can happen in four innings.”

“Yup.”

What they didn’t say—what baseball superstition demanded they couldn’t say—was that Tucker was five innings into a no-hitter.

Hell, he was five innings into a perfect game.

If he could make it through four more innings without a Yankees batter getting on base—either by hitting a ball or getting walked—he might be the twenty-fourth pitcher in the history of baseball to have one.

One man in twenty-four.

The odds were against him, of course. Perfect games were rare enough people still got excited to see them happen, and getting out twenty-seven batters in a row was nearly impossible.

That said, he’d already gotten fifteen of those twenty-seven out.

If he could get out twelve more batters either by strikeout, ground out or fly out…he would do it.

“Have you ever…? Have you ever seen one?” she asked him.

“Never in person. You?”

“Yeah. Sox had one against Seattle while I was with the team.”

“You think he can do it?”

Emmy stared at the TV, watching a replay of the last strike. The camera was tight on Tucker’s face as he observed Alex’s calls. A slight shake of the head, his mismatched eyes alert and focused. When he threw the strike, he looked completely calm and in control.

“Yeah,” she whispered, as if speaking too loud might somehow distract Tucker. “Yeah, I think he can.”





The color had faded out of the sky, going from a purple, to deep blue and all the way to black by the time the top of the eighth inning came in.

He had to get through two more innings and he’d have pitched a complete game. Coming off a major head injury and playing all the way through his first game back… If this didn’t prove he deserved to stay, he couldn’t think of anything that would.

He’d so finely tuned out the noise of the stadium he could have heard a pin drop. It seemed as if there were no noise at all, just the throb of his pulse in his ears and the feel of the ball in his hand.

Just him, Alex and the batter. Three people who ruled the world from the time Tucker threw the ball to the moment Alex caught it. In that eighth of a second, the rotation of the Earth ceased and time itself froze.

He read Alex’s call and gave the nod. Pulling up tall, he took a deep breath and gazed into the basket of his glove. The ball looked as small and simple as an egg in his hand. How was it something so little could define so much of his life?

Tucker lifted the glove to his face, inhaling the smell of leather and oil. The stitching on the ball tickled his fingertips as he shifted his hand into position to throw a proper changeup.

The pitch sailed into the strike zone and was met with a hard, solid crack as the bat made contact, sending the ball high into the sky. Tucker dropped his hand and pushed his hat up off his forehead, watching the ball travel in slow motion towards the centerfield bleachers.

It could go either way—fall as a pop fly or travel over the wall as a home run. Tucker covered his brow with the flat of his hand to blot out the bright spotlights and tracked the arc of the ball as it began to fall.

He and the centerfielder realized where it would land in the same moment. Barrett had already been running but adjusted his track, moving to the left and hauling ass in line with the ball. At the last instant he dove hard, sliding face first across the outfield grass. Tucker couldn’t breathe.

When the man stood again, he raised both hands, the ball held firmly in his glove.

Tucker whooped loudly. He bent double, bracing his hands on his knees, and the crowd booed in response, but it barely registered. It didn’t matter. They’d gotten the out and were one man closer.

The next two were basic strikeouts, and another one-two-three inning closed out.

He walked back to the dugout but noticed there were fewer back pats and high-fives. Ramon squeezed his shoulder, but aside from that the atmosphere in the dugout was downright chilly.

When he sat on the bench, the players closest to him got up and walked away with polite smiles.

Alex was the only one not avoiding him. The catcher took the place on the bench beside him, shucking off his catcher garb like an exoskeleton. “Still feeling good?” Alex asked.