Ty Oliver could still hear the boos in his head. They had resounded throughout Archbishop Stadium, cascaded down on him and his players alike. They'd started in the seventh, when Jean-Michel Lefebvre had walked back-to-back batters, continued when Barrett Satterfield had mishandled a sure double-play ball, then airmailed it into the seats trying to get the back runner, and finally Lefebvre had allowed a two-run single. That made it 7-5 to the visitors, some nobody nation called Second Peenadian that hadn't released the names of any of the players nor had they ever competed in a World Baseball Classic before. They'd blown the lead they had worked so hard to build after a similar series of miscues, walks, bloops, errors, and even a hit by pitch had pushed four runs across in the second against Christian Hammond, supposedly the ace of the Lions' staff. Hammond was tough; he'd bounced back to pitch six solid innings and key hits by Gary McKinney, Daniel Conner, and Satterfield had given them a 5-4 lead. Then the fatal seventh.
The boos had created such a wall of sound that he'd found it incredibly difficult to concentrate the rest of the inning. Thank God Roger Bizet hadn't faltered and had been able to get the outs they needed to get them out of the inning. They had continued as the Lions had gone down quietly, more or less, managing just three baserunners across the final three innings. It had been a terrible locker room after that game. There wasn't anything he could think to say. It wasn't a chew-his-team out kind of a game, but it wasn't a sympathise-with-your-players kind of a game either. It was a stare-blankly-at-the-wall-as-you-reflect-on-your-shortcomings kind of a game.
The thing was, by the next home game, it didn't seem like the fans had watched or that his players even remembered their 4-0 defeat of Gortolekua. Rocky Gantt had pitched a crisp eight and a third shutout innings before running into a little trouble, but it wasn't anything Ricky Hart couldn't handle. The offense was a little weak until Vincent Saint-Denis crushed a three-run homer in the eighth, but it was enough. But by the time they came back to Archbishop, the boos had returned and the Lions' competency had gone away. It didn't matter that Milchama was basically the opposite of Second Peenadian: high-ranked, older than dirt, well-known players. As soon as the Warriors went up 2-0, the boos had returned. It couldn't have just been in his head. There were too many of them for that. Jonathan Drake had only gotten through five and a third before being knocked out of the box, and Simon Steele couldn't staunch the bleeding until six runs were on the scoreboard for the Warriors, five more than the Lions. The next twelve outs for the Lions yielded three baserunners in an utterly dismal offensive performance. And the boos continued like rain, like the fog that sometimes blanketed Londinium.
It was utterly uncharacteristic of Nova Anglicans to boo so consistently, but Oliver couldn't blame them. They'd turned in two stinkers at home, and without the chance to rectify things that a series format provided, they were in deep shit at 1-2. No wonder people were booing them. No real deep runs since the championship series loss to Cassadaigua in WBC 50 and now this. Facing off against Bardney in a weird stadium, a weird nation, and all sorts of groundskeeping gamesmanship could have been a real killer. And they fell behind 3-0. But Hank Oliver, Sam Erickson, and finally Nolan Dunning had touched up the "Dartford Flash" to give the Lions the 4-3 lead and Hart had nailed down the save.
The first pitch of the first inning of the game against United Adaikes, a 95 MPH fastball right down the pipe, had been taken right out of the park, 404 feet to straightaway center and the boos had rolled in. Almost like the whole stadium was waiting for things to go wrong. They were still selling out WBC games, but 35,000 fans isn't any friendlier than 15,000 when they're all booing at once. Ty had taken the unprecedented step of going out himself, after one pitch, not to remove his pitcher, but just to make sure Caleb Sherman was okay. Or maybe it was to make sure he was okay; he hadn't really ever struggled in his playing career or really in his coaching career quite like this. To be behind the eight-ball and on the receiving end of wave after wave of boos after one pitch, he might well have cracked had it been him on the mound. To be honest, he wasn't sure he wasn't cracking in the dugout up to that point. Everything was blurring together and being drowned in the roar of sound. And then Sherman had said the magic words, "I got this, coach." And he did have it. Over the next eight innings, he proceeded to use every one of his four pitches to baffle the United Adaikes hitters. 12-6 curves that batters swung over, changeups that had hitters way out in front, sliders biting at back feet and outside corners, and a fastball to blow people away when needed. Twenty-five batters, twenty-four outs, ten strikeouts, zero walks. And the boos had subsided. They'd even turned to cheers as Sherman put on a master class of pitching, as Conner, Davis Shipley, Satterfield, and McKinney had knocked in runs. The boos in Ty's head had receded as well. Everything was quiet for once. Sure, Hart had gotten into a little trouble in the ninth and given up a run, but he got out of it and the Lions had a winning record for the first half.
But the boos could come back at any time. Ty tensed up just thinking about it. So he'd made the choice to not let the other teams get too familiar with the Lions' starters. He'd let Tommy Logan, the starter turned fireman, handle Second Peenadian on the road, and bump Jonathan Drake to the bullpen for a bit. Everyone else would continue in their same rotation after Logan. Maybe that would shut off the spigot of noise. Maybe.
OOC Note: Second-half rotation will be Logan/Hammond/Gantt/Rouillard/Sherman.
