Pitch
Season 1, Episode 3: “Beanball”
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Spoilers through Pitch season 1, episode 3: “Beanball.”
It is with a solemn heart that I inform all of you that Alyssa is gone this week for New York Comic Con and thus, will not able to review Pitch’s third episode, “Beanball.” Fortunately, I am here to take her place which means that some shenanigans are about to ensue up in this joint, so let’s get started, shall we?
The theme of this week’s “Beanball” focused on two main plots: 1. Ginny’s past love life and 2. Ginny at bat. Ginny gets that first ball rolling after she receives a bottle of champagne from Drake which leads to some banter between her and injured pitcher, Tommy Miller.
Miller: “She’ll go out with rappers, but not ball players.”
Ginny: “First of all, I’m not going out with Drake. I don’t even know Drake. But I’ve met you guys, and I don’t care if you’re rappers or doctors, I’m never going to go out with you.”
“She doesn’t date ball players”
After last week’s episode, I wrote about my hopes that Ginny Baker wouldn’t get into romantic entanglements with her new teammates, especially Blip and Lawson. Thankfully, Fox seems to be sticking to that trend for the time being. Lawson hooked up with Amelia and Blip and Evelyn are still leading the league in adorableness, so we can put away the pitchforks for now. How to the ever, that doesn’t mean that Ginny can’t have some romance, too. And boy does she in the form of the always charming Shamier Anderson. (OHHEY, Agent Dolls!)
It looks like Pitch is sticking with the flashbacks to Ginny’s time before she joined the MLB and while I’m not usually a fan of flashbacks, in this situation, I think they work. Unlike, say Arrow, the flashbacks have their own story to tell, eventually leading back to the main story in the present. They aren’t just excuses to fill ten minutes of screentime. For that, I’m grateful. The pilot episode has, however, made me a smidge gun shy about whether or not the characters in Ginny’s flashbacks are actually alive.
But let’s get back to the business at hand, which is Ginny kissing Shamier Trevor. Trevor is a catcher for a rival team while Ginny’s playing in Texas and one night while out with Blip and Evelyn, he asks to buy her a drink. Ginny sticks firm to her “no ball players” dating rule and sends him away. However, Trevor is persistent and eventually he wears her down by confiding at dinner that he wants to quit baseball and go back to college. Ginny finds this admirable and decides to date him. The pair go on a few adorable dates, even sharing a sweet scene where Ginny teaches Trevor how to golf.
Happiness doesn’t last long for Ginny and Trevor, as Ginny learns that Trevor didn’t intend to quit playing baseball and instead had signed with the Cardinals farm team, giving him a shot at the majors. She’s clearly heartbroken and betrayed by his actions because she had a rule and she broke it for a man who didn’t seem to respect how hard it was for her to break it in the first place.
Back in the present, Trevor is the catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and after the game he warns Ginny about a potential scandal involving pictures of the two of them back when they were dating.
“There’s a code”
The last time the Padres played the Cardinals, the Cards’ pitcher, Falcone, hit Tommy Miller and broke his hand, which was the whole impetus for calling up Ginny in the first place. Ginny, still adamant on being one of the guys, aims to settle that score by hitting Falcone, starting up a beanball feud between the two teams. Lawson cautions against this retaliation, telling her that a “whiffle ball would hurt more” than one of her pitches.
With Al thrown out of the game before the pitch is even thrown, it’s up to Buck to step in as acting manager. Of course, he’s given a doozy of a situation to handle, especially after Ginny pelts Falcone, but with the backing of Miller, he gives her the okay to go to bat. The Cards sub out Falcone as pitcher and bring in a guy nicknamed “The Mountain” and I’ll give you two guesses as to why he’s called that. “The Mountain leads the league in hit batsmen.” Despite his name and Lawson’s reservations about Ginny hitting, the Mountain doesn’t try to hit her. In fact, he doesn’t even give her a chance to swing, throwing only soft balls over the plate.
Ginny is livid that Mount won’t continue their feud and storms up to the plate with a bad attitude, “What’s a girl gotta do to get beaned, huh?” Mount throwing four balls during their beanball feud was the worst thing that could happen to Ginny because it only reinforces the idea that she’s special, that’s she meant to be treated differently than the rest of the guys. Had it been Miller at bat, Mount would have hit him. Ginny gets into a tiff with Trevor, telling him to “nut up” and who is first to defend her actions?
Tommy. Freaking. Miller.
Both pitchers get booted from the game and the relationship that was once laced with distrust and envy has evolved into one of respect.
My god, I love this show.
Other things that happened
Al campaigns not to be fired because if he’s let go, everyone will see it as Ginny’s fault and he doesn’t want that blame on her shoulders. Pitch does a really good job of taking characters like Al and making them likable in unexpected ways. For most of the episode, Oscar, the Padres’ GM, searches for a Korean translator, but surprisingly it’s Al who speaks Korean and tells his player he’s being sent back down to the minors.
Lawson and Amelia do their best to keep their budding romance a secret, but Ginny isn’t stupid. I’m sure she’ll figure it out sooner or later. Is it just me or is Amelia acting kind of shady where Lawson is concerned? There’s more to her shyness about the relationship than just, “Ginny admires you.”
Random Thoughts
Lawson making breakfast after a night with Amelia: “This is for me. I can whip something up for you, if you want?” Lawson, you ain’t fooling anyone with that devil-may-care attitude. We know underneath that scruffy beard lies a heart of gold just begging for someone to love.
The Baker/Lawson dynamic is really growing on me. Their friendship is phenomenal and I’m excited to see how things play out, especially after the promo for next week’s episode.
Even more exciting is the newfound Baker/Miller relationship.
More people need to be watching this show because it’s in ratings trouble and if we’ve learned anything about Fox, it’s that that is a bad sign. TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
Pitch airs Thursdays on Fox at 9pm EST.
