[jksander]

As I stood on the mound in front of hundreds of fans at Buffalo Stadium, I had to keep asking myself how did I get here? It wasn’t the ballpark itself, this one looked like all the others I’d played in over the years except for the larger grandstand and the bigger crowd. But my stomach was churning and until I felt my arm going through its motions I wasn’t fully sure I’d actually be able to go through with it ...

Then their leadoff man hit a pop-fly out to short and I realized I had, and I could.

It got a bit easier from there, to focus on my windup, the throw, and silently communicating with my catcher. My second batter, a guy named Rye, hit a double, and then took third on a groundball single that got past my first baseman, but another pop-fly and a groundout play got me through my first inning.

I can do this.

Way too quickly I found myself back up to pitch in the top of the second, but after a leadoff single got by me, I shut their next three batters down and felt like I could have done it blindfolded. Is this it? I can handle this! They went down three in a row in the third, but I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. Their catcher doubled in a run in the top of the fourth, and their first baseman singled in a run pretty quickly after that, and my head was spinning. That guy from the first inning scored one in the fifth off a groundball single, and our manager pulled me for a bullpen arm at the start of the sixth, our team in a 3-0 hole.

We did our best to climb back in, scoring off a sac-fly in the bottom of the sixth and a solo homer from our left fielder Jim Hunt in the eighth, but that wasn’t enough, so we had to settle for an opening day loss, and it was on my shoulders ... five innings, eight hits, three walks and three runs. I struck out three too, but it would have felt better if I had kept my cool under pressure and won the game.

One game behind me, I told myself. I’ll pitch a lot more than that this year, and it’s a long season.

Hopefully they weren’t wrong about me.

- - - - -

I need to stop reading the papers. Somebody slipped me a copy of the Sporting News after my second loss of the season, and showed me the article that listed me as the top prospect in the Cardinals’ system, ranked third in the country. Me, the guy who had given up eight runs in his first twelve-and-a-third innings ... how does that make me a top prospect? I can barely get my head around Double-A ball! But the team’s been friendly, and most of the pressure’s been self-inflicted. I just have to stop dwelling on things I can’t change.

It’s been new being on the road with a baseball team, but I’m learning that when you’re on a team you really have to focus on the whole and not on your own ups and downs. After my second loss, a 5-2 beatdown on the road in Beaumont, the guys saw I was really down on myself, so they dragged me out and we had a good time playing cards and just forgetting about baseball for a bit. And then, crazy thing of all things, we started winning! We beat Beaumont 3-2 in the next day’s game, and then swept Shreveport as our bats started to heat up!

That set me up back in Houston for my third outing as we hosted Fort Worth.

I got through the first inning and a real jam when we got their shortstop to ground into a 5-4-3 double play with the bases loaded. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, but I survived it ... and in the bottom of the inning we got ourselves a lead when Ray Cunningham, our third baseman, scored off a groundball single by our first baseman, giving me a 1-0 lead to work with!

That calmed me down, and we added on two more in the bottom of the second as the pressure evaporated. Suddenly I was pitching like I pitched back at home, and I guess our manager could sense it. He kept me out there in the sixth, leading 3-0, and didn’t pull me even when I got into a jam and let them on the board with a sac-fly on two outs with two on. They loaded the bases, but we got the final out to keep the lead. But maybe I looked too confident. He kept me out in the seventh too, and that time they got an RBI single on one out, loaded the bases again, and scored the tying run when I gave their right fielder a fat fastball to hit ... what was I thinking? ... though we went into the bottom of the seventh tied, but not broken.

We got the lead back in the bottom of the inning, when our shortstop Vernon Deck hit an RBI triple to drive in a pair and give us back the lead, and mercifully our manager took the ball from me at the start of the eighth inning because I was gassed and felt that any pitch I might throw was gonna break our streak. I watched from the dugout as the bullpen got us through the rest of the game, barely breathing until the 5-3 victory was in the bag ... but we got the win! It wasn’t pretty ... I allowed ten hits, walked three batters and only struck out one guy, but I also only allowed three runs, not letting them all the way back in, giving our offense a chance. An ERA of 5.12 through 19.1 innings isn’t going to turn many heads, but it proved a lot to me tonight that I can stick with this. Nothing good comes easy, my dad would say. And he’s right ... if I thought it was going to be easy to just show up and win my way onto the Cardinals’ starting roster, I needed the attitude adjustment now, rather than when it was too late to pick myself up and start learning.

It’s April 20th and the win brought our record above .500, so now the real season can begin. There’s a ton more baseball to be played before this league wraps up in late September!