Survivor: Jiggmin’s Revival

[TRUC]

As a former member of Gaudeo, and as requested by the rules commitee of Survivor and the safety guidelines of the Windy City town hall regarding tornado alerts, here is my pitch in an attempt to ensure my safety during the upcoming trial:

Spoiler

Game context, score and analytics are very important when selecting which pitch will be thrown next, and under normal circumstances, you don't get to freely choose parameters. However, yours truly is not a particularly good thrower of the good ol' leather ball, and the game being played is a little different than baseball, so I will base my pitch selection using a theoretical setting and extrapolate the best scenario possible.

First and foremost, at this point of the game past the merge but not so deep that the final two are just around the corner, we can pinpoint the 6th inning. A little over the midway point, but with a lot of back and forth ball to play, comeback potential and runners in scoring position cannot be left onto the bases anymore. Looking at the remaining players, it appears to be 6-4 for Gaudeo vs. Aura members, which will be our current score, and since the challenger of this ultimatum is from Aura, implying a walk-off homer opportunity at the bottom of the 9th inning is not out of place. So we'll assume Gaudeo is batting first, and as a pitcher, Aura would be at the plate. We can then conclude we are currently at the bottom of the 6th inning. Sir Pepa just got tagged out at 3rd base on a squeeze play bunt that almost caught the defense, so there is 1 out.

Now, for the current at bat, there isn't much to base my deductions on, but the next challenge has been revealed and is already under way. I was a little late on the selection, so I need to be a bit behind on the pitch count. And since this is a high stakes moment, but still at the beginning of the process and without any threat on the results or the council yet, we can assume there are no runners on the bases. To avoid excruciating pressure on the pitch itself, we will stay away from a full count or forced pitch call from the umpire, so a 2-1 count seems to be the best representation. I have no idea if TheBreeze, our batter, is a righty or a lefty, but as a right handed pitcher, it woukd be tougher to face a rigthy, so in this situation, we'll give the advantage to our batter.

And finally, pitch selection. Here we need to go wild, because I don't have the slightest clue on how to throw most curving/dropping pitches, let alone do anything accurately. So we'll assume I somehwat know what I'm doing for the purpose of this exercice. Under these violent windy conditions, a side-moving pitch seems a bit too risky,so we will disregard pitches like a cutter or a slider. We don't want to be throwing a curveball because that is metaphorically not nice anyway, and a screwball would be the greatest way to achieve to first medical eviction of the season. For similar reasons, a knuckleball is too unpredictable, and could cause more harm than good despite the scoring lead, since TheBreeze is the one holding the sword of Damocles (which is a nice cool name for a bat, should any professional MLB player ever read this for some reason). This is also the reason why we should excluded low/variable velocity pitches like a splitter or a changeup, as we cannot afford a 3rd ball on this pitch. And while it would be funny, an Eephus simply cannot win us the game. As far as I'm aware, this leaves up only two more options: the regular fastball (4-seam), or its cousin the 2-seam fastball, which I think they call a sinker nowadays. While the 4-seam holds more raw speed, it is what a great batter like TheBreeze would expect dwon the middle of the plate to send a message directly out of the park, and onto someone's windshield, probably. So the 2-seamer is the last logical choice; as it is thrown nose down, it will be less affected by the wind compared to a potential rising fastball. The downward movement late at the plate could misdirect the batter at the last second to ensure a great strike, a pop fly for an out, or at worst a foul ball, all of which would put us ahead in the count or the inning, and keep us safe in the game.

To summarise:

Gaudeo 6 - 4 Aura
Bottom of the 6th inning, 1 out, no runners on base
2 balls & 1 strike for a 2-1 count, righty batter TheBreeze at the plate
TRUC throws a 2-seam fastball at the lower-left part of the strike zone

And that is my pitch