The Boxscore – 5/16/12
A few days ago, I was told that the Blue Jays were taking me
off the 40-man roster. This is a
significant happening in my baseball career. If you remember last November, the A’s took me off their 40-man
roster and the Blue Jays picked me up and placed me on their 40-man
roster. Being on the 40-man is
significant because a major league team can only use players that are on their 40-man
roster. Within the 40-man, there
is the 25-man active roster, which is the roster of available players that the
team can use that day. The 40-man
is a selection of players that the big league team has protected and who are available
to then be selected for the 25-man active roster. The 15 players who are not on the 40-man roster are in the
minor leagues, but can be called up to the big leagues or sent back to the
minors with relative ease. To sum
this up, if you want to make it to the big leagues you want to be on the 40-man
roster. If you are not on the
40-man and the team wants to call you up, they have to make room on their
40-man for you, which allows whoever they are taking off the 40-man to be
eligible for another team to claim them.
A team protects its most important players and prospects from other
teams by placing them on the 40-man roster. I had a great outing a few days ago. I threw 2 innings,
giving up 1 hit, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts.
But, my last few outings have not been good. I haven’t had much “life” on the ball. I have given up a bunch of runs. In my two previous outings, I entered
the game with the lead or with a tie and I gave it up, thereby getting the loss
for both games. One outing wasn’t
as bad as it sounded in the box score, but I’ll tell you more about that in the
next paragraph.
In this outing, my box score (my statistics for the outing)
read 0-1, 1.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 2 K.
This all means that I got the loss, throwing 1 2/3 innings while giving
up 1 run on 1 hit with 1 walk and 2 strikeouts. Now to a reliever and to my team, this says that I gave up
the lead by giving up a run when we were tied and I was the one who gave up the
run, thereby earning the loss for the team. What the box score doesn’t tell you is that the one hit I
gave up came in the 1st inning and the walk wasn’t the guy who
scored, but actually an intentional walk.
What really happened was I threw my first inning well and only gave up
one hit. The 2nd inning
started and I threw well getting the 1st out easily. The next batter I struck out, but the
ball took a funny bounce and got by my catcher, so even though I struck the
batter out, he got to 1st base. He then stole 2nd base (barely). There was a fly ball to center field
and the runner tagged up and got to third. So, now it was runner on 3rd and 2 outs. We then intentionally walked the next
guy (my walk) and they brought in a new reliever. The runner then scored on a bloop hit off the new pitcher. My runner, my fault, my loss. But isn’t it funny that the one walk I
have on my record this year is an intentional walk and that the loss and earned
run for that game came from a guy I struck out on a good slider? The box score doesn’t tell the
story. The way things look doesn’t
tell the whole story, whether that’s the way someone else appears to us or the
way God is working in our lives.
Everyone has a story that is so much deeper than what appears on the
outside. Likewise, God has a story
for each one of us that is so much deeper than what we are experiencing on the
outside. Our box score might not
look too bright, but God’s writing the story for His purpose and there are some
good things going on in the real story.
What’s His purpose? I think it’s probably exactly what His purpose was
for the Israelites: “For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a
law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known
to their children; that the generation to come might know them, the children
who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that
they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His
commandments.” Psalm 78:5-7 “That
they may set their hope in God.”
Amen!
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