Lineu Aldo
Rockville manager Francisco Catazara had seen enough. He emerged from the visitors’ dugout and waved his right hand to signal a pitching change. Running in from the bullpen was right-handed knuckleballer Yoshimatsu Miyauchi, who has been used primarily in mop up duty this season. Miyauchi has struggled all season versus left-handed hitters, but after 14+ innings, Catazara was running out of pitchers and didn’t have the luxury of forcing a lefty-lefty matchup.
Everyone in the stadium was on their feet as Miyauchi finished his warmup pitches and Aldo dug in the left-handed batters box. Ball one. Ball two. Ball three. The knuckleball was dancing in the still air with the stadium roof closed, but Miyauchi was clearly unable to steer it into the strike zone. Would Montreal manager Ernesto Zamora give Aldo the green light? A walk would move the speedy Morley into scoring position, with All-Star third baseman Eduardo González due up next. Miyauchi threw a slider that found the zone, but Aldo kept the bat on his shoulder and the count advanced to 3-1.
Afraid to throw the knuckleball on a three-ball count, Miyauchi chose to challenge Aldo with his best pitch, his plus-plus changeup. The veteran Aldo was sitting changeup all the way and crushed it. He knew it was gone the moment he hit it. Ever the class act, Aldo dropped his bat and began jogging to first base, watching it all the way into the right centerfield stands. While it’s never easy to hit one out of Ubisoft, this was a no-doubter, traveling 427 feet with an exit velocity of over 113 mph.
The bullpen and the dugout immediately emptied, and Aldo was mobbed as he stepped on home plate. On the scoreboard, giant flashing numerals spelled out 400, alerting the crowd that Aldo had reached a major milestone with the game-winning shot.
Later, at the customary press conference, Zamora brought along two players, Aldo and Gonzalez. The two of them debuted together in 2041, with both posting monster rookie seasons. Aldo edged Gonzalez for Rookie of the Year, but together they have anchored the Blazers offense for seventeen years and have grown very close. Gonzalez spoke first, “I was thrilled to be in the on-deck circle when Linny hit his 400th. I hope to be there when he hits number 500. He’s a great teammate.”
Aldo took the mic. “Eddie’s a lot closer to 500 than I am, but I appreciate the thought.” He continued, “It was getting late, and this seemed like a good opportunity to put an end to it. I wasn’t trying to hit it out. That’s not my game. I just hoped to hit it hard into the outfield someplace where it might roll around long enough to allow Billy to score from first. He’s a fabulous baserunner, and I knew that he would get a great jump if I could hit it in the gap.”
“His knuckleball was moving like crazy tonight. I was just really lucky that none of them found the strike zone, cause the only thing harder than catching those is trying to hit them. Honestly, I was surprised that their catcher kept them in front of him. I figured he’d come off the knuckler when the count got to 3-0. Coach Addy gave me the take sign, and I was curious to see what he threw next. It was a get-it-over slider that didn’t move very much. With only one strike, I decided to sell out on the changeup. To me, that was the logical choice for him. It’s his best pitch, and he hadn’t thrown it yet. It wasn’t a bad pitch; it started out as a strike but I knew it would break out of the zone. I managed to golf it into stands. It felt good when I hit it. I was pretty confident that it would carry, even with the roof closed.”
“I am very pleased that this happened in front of the home fans. They have been so great. Eddie and I never imagined that after all these years, we’d still be here!”
“Speak for yourself, Linny!” said Gonzalez.