PITCH Review [1×03]: “Beanball”

Ginny won us over already but this time she wins over her boys…with a beanball war.

We know that Tommy (Ryan Dorsey) was beaned by the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Theo Falcone (Andy Hnilo) and broke his finger, hence the bad blood. So surprise! It’s the Cardinals versus the Padres. Via them we get an explanation into Ginny’s (Kylie Bunbury) code of not dating baseball players.

Through flashbacks, guest-star Shamier Anderson’s Trevor Davis had been dating Ginny after she broke her own code when he tells her he’s retiring and going to college. Only he’s not. He’s scouted by—guess who?—the Cardinals. Their relationship ends bitterly, but Ginny doesn’t let it affect her game.

Ginny avenges Tommy by hitting Falcone with her pitch. The Padres are concerned by her getting hit in retaliation—these Cardinals are whizzing into the 90mph’s—but Ginny doesn’t care. When Falcone is swapped with ‘The Mount’ (Justen Naughton), Ginny’s suspicious when all three go wide. She connects Travis’ past feelings for her and the usually fearsome Mount and yells:

Ginny: What’s a girl gotta do to get beaned?

Trevor stops her and she shoves him out of the way. The Padres jump into a brawl for her. Blip (Mo McRae) protects Ginny from the action though both Tommy and Ginny are ejected from the game.

Al, (Dan Lauria) who’d been ejected earlier, uses this time to run rings around Maxine Armstrong (Wendie Malick). He convinces her that if he’s fired, so soon after his sexist comments were leaked, Ginny will look like a coach-killer. Armstrong decides to keep Al and threaten Frank’s (Bob Balaban) future instead.

Meanwhile, Ginny’s finally One of the Guys. Her beef with Tommy vanishes with a fist-bump; Trevor apologises for his past actions; Ginny and Mike are buddies. It’s all happily ever after until Trevor reveals grimly he backed up his past pictures with Ginny—and he was hacked.

Ginny fights in the beanball war and the locker room war too.

There’s a moment early on in the episode where some guy crudely asks her for one night so he can make it into the big leagues like Trevor did.

At one point, Ginny reveals to Trevor that she has to fend off sexism from pure scumbags and also mollycoddling from men who think she’s some kind of damsel in distress. It all comes into play this episode, but as ever, Ginny triumphs over this by being herself.

With last episode’s identity crisis in mind, Ginny’s now somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades. She’s Ginny, ‘One of the Guys’. Ginny, ‘the role-model’ (and she embraces it, as seen with Oscar’s little girl). And most importantly, herself. There’s a lovely moment Ginny and Mike towards the end where he admits:

Mike: Sixteen years I’ve been playing in this town. I’ve seen a lot of rookies come and go. Never met one like you.

Ginny: Yeah, well-

Mike: Not because you’re a girl. It’s what you’re doing…It’s what you’re having to deal with. You’re kinda blowing me away.

Gosselaar has excellent chemistry with both Bunbury and Ali Larter, but it’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out. Mike’s quickly becoming one of the most important people in Ginny’s life; Amelia already is. The platonic closeness between Mike and Ginny has been a winning formula, and it does look like ‘Pitch’ is setting up for a scandalous reveal between the trio.

Oscar, Woo-Jin and the hammy situation ‘Pitch’ creates for nothing.

Oscar (Mark Consuelos) spends the entire episode running around trying to manage the behind-the-scenes situation. It rapidly endears us to his character when he chokes on trying to tell his little girl that he and his wife are splitting up, though his daughter reveals she intuitively already knows. It’s lovely acting by Consuelos, who is given a tender, gorgeously heartbreaking moment at the end of his high-energy performance.

He is, however, tangled up in something ‘Pitch’ made an unnecessary, offensive meal out of.

Already hitting cliché-town, the Padres feature a Korean pitcher doesn’t speak English, Woo-Jin (Daniel Chan Kim). He’s to be given the bad news that he’ll need to step down as the replacement pitcher now that Tommy’s come out of injury. In the midst of managing all the PR waffle, Oscar asks literally one person—another Asian, wrong country—Eliot (Tim Jo) if he speaks Korean. He doesn’t, and so this is somehow a disaster.

It’s all absolutely ridiculous. The situation is resolved quite quickly—as is the problem with ‘Pitch’ it seems—by Al returning and revealing he’s fluent in Korean. It’s as if we need to be any more aware of Al’s brilliance or something. The fact that Al knows Korean will never be brought up again. But there’s an entire storyline set up for the white guy to save the day, and it’s pointless.

Al’s a bit of a snake, isn’t he?

This is my ball club and I’m not willing to give it up! They’re going to have to take it from me and I’m not going to let them.

It turns out that Al gets himself ejected early on in the game in order to have a sit-down with the co-owner of the Padres, Maxine (who’s welcome back anytime—seriously). Under fire by Frank, it’s revealed that really, behind closed doors, Frank isn’t in charge at all. Al knows this and plays him by playing Maxine. He acknowledges last week’s sexist scandal and claims that if he gets fired, it’ll look like Ginny got him fired and will thus be known as a coach-killer. Can the Padres have that on their plate? The answer, ultimately, is no.

Final Verdict: ‘Pitch’ is proving to be addictive, but the hype’s died down as we wait for the brilliance. Still, we hope FOX give it a chance to grow.

There are still issues with ‘Pitch’, but this episode was by far the best episode of ‘Pitch’ thus. Firstly, the flashbacks remain weak and somewhat cheesy—not even the cheese we like. Secondly, it’s awesome that ‘Pitch’ is putting a woman of colour at its core and having her literally own everyone. Except everything just gets resolved too easily. Storylines that deserve to be played out longer don’t. The dialogue’s kind of—again, cheesy. Lastly, Ginny has to almost force the Padres into fending for her by starting this beanball war—which could’ve had nasty consequences if the Padres hadn’t come charging out.

Hopefully, Mike and Amelia’s relationship will evolve rather than disintegrate. His chemistry’s excellent with Larter, and it could make for an interesting dynamic. The duo is vastly different, yet their closeness to Ginny could be a huge setback. However, they’e both like parents to her—especially Mike, who takes more of a mentor/adviser role rather than a romantic one.

Again, the music elevated the episode—especially in some of the more intense moments on the pitch. And so did Kenneth Fink’s direction of the beautifully shot moments on-pitch. But what ‘Pitch’ needs to improve is its script. The Woo-Jin storyline was unfunny and borderline idiotic. The flashbacks are proving to be weak, everything—literally everything—is predictable, and most of the episode’s issues are resolved so quickly. “Nut up”, ‘Pitch’.

Questions & Comments:

• I wonder if the Travis situation is a set-up for some commentary on the whole ‘leaked nudes’ scandal…
• I hope Mike and Amelia develop something rather than the obvious Mike/Ginny. Mike and Amelia are two broken pieces who glue each other together; Mike and Ginny are a fantastic mentor/student kind of relationship.
• Aside from the atrocious Woo-Jin storyline, it was good to see him being on the bus with the other boys—it was nice to see a Korean man part of an American team in a traditionally all-American sport.
• Al, you absolute snake. I really want to see more backroom politics now.
• What were your thoughts in episode three? Let us know @TVAfterDark!

Catch PITCH on Thursdays on Fox at 9pm EST!