Payoff Pitch (Philadelphia Patriots)

by V. K. Sykes

  Maddie, the brunette wife of super-hunk outfielder Jake Miller, turned in her stadium seat and gave her a warm smile. “Don’t let it bother you, Teddy. The boo-birds think the manager should have taken Noah out and put in a new pitcher to start this inning. Most of the time a pitcher won’t be left in the game if he gives up five runs in five innings, but Jack Ault knows what he’s doing. He’s the best manager in baseball.”

  Though Teddy knew nothing about baseball, even she could tell Noah had been struggling. She wasn’t close enough to quite read his expression, but his body language told her he’d become frustrated and angry with himself after he gave up that home run in the fourth. His head down as three Nationals rounded the bases and scored, he’d looked almost defeated. Fortunately, though, he’d bounced back the next inning, giving up another run only because of an error by the shortstop. To Teddy, that had seemed like a victory, particularly since the Patriots still held their lead.

  “Noah does look a little tired to me,” Teddy said.

  Holly gave a delicate snort from Teddy’s other side. “Yes, but Noah’s just like Nate when he’s out on the mound. He somehow finds a way to do his best pitching just when you think he’s run out of gas. Guys like them are so super-competitive that they can find something extra just when it looks like they’re done. They just stay inside themselves and pitch to their strengths.”

  Whatever that means. Teddy smiled uncertainly at the leggy, auburn-haired beauty whose baby bump was just starting to show. Noah had introduced her as the wife of pitcher Nate Carter, but Maddie had quickly added that Dr. Bell-Carter was a prominent cardiac surgeon specializing in congenital heart disease at the children’s hospital. But despite such scary-impressive credentials, Holly had been friendly and easy to talk to. Teddy had liked her immediately.

  “Well, just listen to you, Holly Carter,” Maddie said in a playful voice as she leaned forward to speak to Holly. “It wasn’t that long ago that you didn’t know a bat from a broomstick, and now you can string together clichés like a seasoned pro.”

  Holly stuck her tongue out at her friend.

  Teddy laughed at the exchange, envying the obviously close friendship of the two women. High powered professionals, they were nevertheless totally down to earth, as well as kind and warm to the baseball-ignorant dog walker Noah had foisted on them for the evening.

  “The people who are booing don’t get why Jack’s leaving Noah in the game,” Maddie said to Teddy, “but it should be obvious.”

  Not so obvious that Teddy had even the faintest idea. She nodded politely, hoping she didn’t look too stupid.

  Maddie paused for a second then flashed Teddy a wry smile. “What I mean is that Noah would be third to bat in the bottom of this inning if he was still in the game. So, what Jack would like to do is put in a pinch hitter for him then and have a relief pitcher throw the top of the seventh. If he put in a reliever now, that guy would have to bat in the bottom of the inning, or else Jack would have to burn another reliever by pinch hitting for the first reliever.”

  Teddy blinked, trying to process what sounded like a foreign language. Maddie patiently tried again. “You don’t want to let a pitcher hit unless you really want that guy to stay in the game. Almost all pitchers have terrible batting averages and rarely drive in runs.”

  “Oh,” Teddy said, starting to get it. “So, are you saying the manager doesn’t necessarily have confidence in Noah just because he’s letting him pitch another inning?”

  Maddie winced a bit, as if a little embarrassed. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. I was just trying to explain pinch-hitting strategy.”

  “So, Noah will know that he’s going to be out of the game after this inning, right?” Teddy asked.

  “Yes. And if he can keep the lead until that happens, he’ll be the winning pitcher. If, that is, we hold onto the lead for the rest of the game.”

  “I think that might be another reason why Jack’s leaving Noah in,” Holly said, raising her voice above the crowd noise as the first batter hit a foul ball into the stands behind third base. “Getting the win is a pretty big thing for a pitcher, Teddy. I’m sure Jack wants Noah to get his first one of the season. If I know anything about pitcher psychology, it would be a big morale booster for him.”

  Teddy got that immediately. She’d seen firsthand the impact Noah’s struggles at the ballpark were having on the rest of his life. He tried to hide it the best he could from her and Cristina, but Teddy could practically see the dark, threatening clouds that hung over his head. As each day passed, he was becoming more and more focused on his game—working out like a triathlete and withdrawing into some distant zone where he was physically present in the house and yet not totally there. The evening she’d finished painting her new bedroom, he’d pitched a game that he’d bitterly called a “sick joke” and had become more withdrawn ever since.

  “I agree with the manager on that,” Teddy said. “Noah’s been a little down. I feel like he really needs something good to happen soon.”

  Teddy wanted to reach out and somehow comfort him but didn’t know how to break through. A couple of times he’d gone with her when she took Toby and Sadie for one of their long walks, but though he always enjoyed spending time with the dogs, he hadn’t been nearly as playful with them as when they first arrived from Texas.

  Nor had he made even the slightest move on her, and Teddy was still trying to come to grips with how she felt about that. It was as if the near-miss that day when she came down the ladder into his embrace had suddenly turned her into kryptonite. He was unfailingly polite and kind to both Cristina and her, but his mind always seemed to be somewhere else. Were his troubles on the mound truly damaging to his psyche?

  She had to stop herself from asking the women that question straight out. While she was enjoying getting to know them, Teddy knew she should never forget that they went home to Patriot players who were both close friends of Noah’s. Experience had taught her that bros would usually be bros, and word might eventually reach Noah’s ears that she’d been asking pointed questions about him.

  “You’re aware of Noah’s injury, of course,” Maddie said, “and the fact that he had Tommy John surgery.”

  Though Noah had never mentioned that surgery, Teddy’s father had. Still, the way her dad had described it, she got the impression Noah should be close to fully recovered by now. “Yes. Do you think that’s the problem?”

  Maddie gave a little shrug. “It’s hard to tell, but he did come back quicker than most pitchers who have had a Tommy John. Some are out a year and a half. Some never pitch again, though that’s getting rare these days.”

  “So, he might be pushing himself too hard? Trying to come back too fast?” Teddy could absolutely believe it. Did anybody work his body harder than Noah? She doubted it. But, then again, he was thirty-three, and no longer young in baseball terms.

  “Damn.” Holly muttered a soft curse. “There goes the dreaded walk to the first batter.”

  Teddy hadn’t been paying close attention for the past minute or so as she’d focused on the conversation. When she turned back toward the field, she saw the Nationals batter trotting to first base. Noah picked up the rosin bag from the back of the mound, squeezed it once and then hurled it hard back down to the dirt.

  “He’s not challenging the hitters,” Maddie said.

  Teddy gave her a puzzled look. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  Maddie smiled. “It means Noah’s constantly trying to paint the outside corner of the plate instead of mixing it up—like coming inside on the batter, or throwing high and hard. So, when he misses, he walks the guy. And when he strays a little too far over the plate, the batter hits it hard.”

  “And he keeps shaking the catcher off,” Holly added. “I think he doesn’t want to throw his slider when Nick calls for it.”

  Teddy didn’t fully understand all the baseball-speak, but she got the gist. Noah’s problem sounded to her to be more one of confidence than physical lim
itation. But what did she know?

  “All I know is that it’s tearing him up inside,” she said. “He’s going deeper into his shell every day.”

  Holly’s eyebrows lifted with surprise, but then she gave a thoughtful nod. “Nate said the same thing.” She tilted her head and gave Teddy a closer inspection. “You really care for him, don’t you?”

  Oh, crap.

  Teddy mentally scrambled to find the right thing to say. Holly was clearly intuitive and seemed so nice. But sharing her feelings for Noah with two of his friends—friends she’d just met—just wasn’t on.

  “You don’t need to answer that,” Holly said lightly. “But I’d be a little surprised if you didn’t. Noah is such a good guy—a really fine man and a great team player. Every guy in the clubhouse looks up to him as a leader because he’s so solid and mature.”

  “Even your husband?” Teddy had heard that Nate Carter was the undisputed leader of the pitching staff.

  Holly laughed. “Especially my husband. Nate always says to me that he’s had it too easy in his career. He looks up to Noah because he’s had to fight hard every day to get where he is now. And nobody has worked harder to come back from a career-threatening injury, either. What Noah has gone through has toughened him and made him into a great leader.”

  Maddie shoved her sunglasses up on her head, peering earnestly at Teddy. “Jake says exactly the same thing. Really, if you want the truth, there are a lot of talented veterans on the Patriots, and some new studs like Nick Rome. But four guys are the heart and soul of this team—Nate and Noah for the pitching staff, and Jake and Ryan Locke for the position players. Ryan came here in a trade last year and had a terrible time for a while, but by the end of the season he was not only a solid player but one of the most respected guys in the clubhouse. Noah’s struggling a bit right now, but he’s still totally respected by everyone.”

  Holly nodded her agreement. “Chemistry is everything in this game, Teddy. A team can have all the God-given talent in the world, but if the players don’t mesh and if they don’t have committed, respected leadership, they’ll never make it to the playoffs. History has proven that again and again.”

  “And because Noah’s such a character player,” Maddie added, “he’ll bounce back. I can almost guarantee it.”

  Teddy didn’t need to know anything about his baseball career to understand that Noah was a fine man. She’d figured that out long ago. But she couldn’t help but be impressed by the way Maddie and Holly spoke of him in such obviously heartfelt terms.

  Still, when Maddie said she could almost guarantee that Noah would bounce back, a shiver of anxiety ghosted through her. It made her worry that Noah’s future in baseball was far from solid. The fear wasn’t for her job, it was for him. He didn’t need baseball for the money, that was for sure, but she knew he needed it for something far deeper and more important.

  And that feeling made her realize, God help her, just how much Noah Cade truly meant to her.

  * * *

  Standing in front of his locker, Noah quickly brushed his wet hair into some semblance of order while watching the bottom of the ninth on the clubhouse monitor. He’d taken his time in the shower, letting the hot jets of water work their magic on his tired muscles. He’d already iced his arm after heading into the clubhouse when the manager pulled him from the game with two out in the top of the sixth. As much as he’d hated to be yanked, there was no way he could blame Ault for going to the bullpen to try to get the last out. Not with two men on base and Noah having to fight through every single pitch.

  Unfortunately, their lefty specialist, Kyle Bennett, had promptly walked the Nationals’ left-handed batter to load the bases. Ault had then made another trip to the mound to bring in one of the Patriots’ right handed relievers, Kenny Jefferson, who fought hard but ultimately ceded a grounder up the middle that managed to score the two lead runners.

  Just that easily, the Patriots had lost the lead and Noah’s potential win had disappeared into the ether. He couldn’t blame Bennett and Jefferson, though, because he was the one who had put the tying runs on base, capping off a generally miserable performance for the night. When the manager took the ball from him, he’d told Noah that he wanted to see him in his office as soon as the game ended. Jack Ault had never been one to screw around. If he was going to deliver news, good or bad, he laid it on right away so you wouldn’t have to stew about it.

  And the news this time was not going to be good. It didn’t take a genius to predict what was about to happen.

  The Nationals had taken an 8-7 lead in the top of the ninth and now the Patriots were down to their last out. Noah watched and hoped as centerfielder Kelly Harmer fouled off three straight pitches, keeping the Patriots hopes alive. But when he lined out sharply to the third baseman, it was all over and Noah turned away, feeling personally responsible for the loss.

  It was a sickening feeling—one that left him physically and emotionally drained as he trudged across to the manager’s office to wait for Ault. There was no point hanging around the clubhouse to greet the players. The atmosphere would be depressed, and he didn’t think he would welcome the support and encouragement he knew his teammates would offer him. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t deserve that support.

  The manager’s stadium office could only be called basic, a description which more or less accorded with Jack Ault’s Spartan style. Nothing fancy about either the office or the man. Both were plain, solid and all about hard work. Computers and gadgets? Forget it. Ault had a standard issue laptop like everybody else on the staff, but Noah couldn’t remember having seen the manager actually use it for anything other than a desk decoration.

  He sat down in one of the uncomfortable, hard-backed chairs to wait for Ault’s arrival, resting his forehead in his palms.

  On top of everything else, he’d pitched like a clown in front of Teddy, and that piled on yet another layer of humiliation. Noah wasn’t even sure why he’d persuaded her to take in the game with Holly and Maddie. At the time it had seemed like a way to strengthen the connection between them so she could understand how he’d spent his life working at something that meant everything to him. That way she’d know how genuine he’d been when he asked her to move in. That it wasn’t about having a hot chick living under his roof. That it was about allowing him to focus a hundred percent on his game every single day without worrying about what might or might not be going on back at the house.

  He knew Teddy had to see a live baseball game to truly understand it. She’d hear the roar of the crowd and absorb the crackling energy of tens of thousands of fans living and dying with every pitch. She’d see the players’ ceaseless, unwavering concentration as they treated every single play as it if was going to be the difference between winning and losing. She’d see the camaraderie that bonded a group of athletes into a unit that was so much more than the sum of its parts. Sure, at the end of the day it was just a game, and yet it was much more than that. For Noah, it was the very air that he breathed.

  But now his air had become thick and heavy with pain. And, yes, fear. Tonight he’d felt like little more than an imposter on the mound. Like he didn’t belong there at all. Like he should be at home watching some young guy pitch for the Patriots, a guy with a strong, healthy arm and nothing but a glowing future ahead of him.

  A guy like Noah had been ten years ago.

  What would Teddy be thinking right now? What would she say to him when he got home? Better yet, what would he say to her? And why the hell did he seem to care so much? Her opinion mattered to him a lot more than it should.

  He gave his head an impatient shake, sick of feeling like a sorry-ass loser. Whatever the future held, he needed to suck it up and deal with it. As for Teddy, he couldn’t worry about her right now. He had to focus on what Jack was about to lay on him and make sure he didn’t react in a way he’d regret tomorrow.

  A few moments later, Ault strode into the room, a white towel slung around his neck, his cap in his
hand, and his salt and pepper hair suffering from an acute case of hat-head. Unlike the players, the manager rarely broke a sweat during the game, and Jack Ault was as cool a customer as they came. Without saying a word of greeting, he gave Noah’s shoulder a quick squeeze before he circled his beat-up desk and sat down.

  “Sorry, Skip,” Noah said before Ault could speak. “I just didn’t have it tonight.”

  Ault leaned back in his chair, calm as ever. “You definitely didn’t have your best stuff, but you still battled hard like you always do. That counts big time with me.”

  Those few words of support from the skipper meant a lot to Noah, but it also made him feel even more like he’d let everybody down. “I’ve got to do more work on the slider,” he said, a massive understatement.

  Ault nodded. “You and Javy will keep working on that. But in the meantime, we can’t keep running you out there every fifth day, Noah. Not when your ERA is high and rising. You understand that, right?”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Even though Noah had known this was probably coming, the message stabbed him through the heart. “Yeah, sure. I get it,” he said, trying to mimic Ault’s low-key attitude.

  But his gut crawled with nerves as he waited for the next shoe to drop. Would Ault relegate him to the bullpen? Or, worse, send him down to Triple A? Or maybe they’d put him on the fifteen day disabled list, claiming some injury he really didn’t have.

  “So, what’s the verdict, Skip?” he said a bit impatiently when Ault didn’t respond right away.

  Ault gave him a beady-eyed stare. “This stays in this room, got it?”

  What the hell? Noah’s gut tightened another notch as he nodded his agreement.

  “Dembinski told me before the game that unless you had a quality start tonight, he wanted to send you down until you get straightened out.”

  Noah wasn’t surprised. General manager Dave Dembinski had probably been a hardass when he was still in nursery school. The GM had no sentimentality and took no prisoners. Though few players liked him personally, everyone acknowledged that he was one of the most successful GM’s in baseball.