Pitcher Beginning To Wonder If This Mound Visit Could Have Been An Email

Washington Nationals starter Brian Bluugo was cruising through the fourth last night. Suddenly, he noticed pitching coach Jim Hickey jog out of the dugout with Brent Miller from Brand Marketing. It was the beginning of a mound visit Bluugo wondered was entirely necessary.

“My stuff was on, locating my spots. But Jim wanted to take a few minutes to review corporate’s new ‘Just Get Outs’ initiative. Brent had a PowerPoint but of course it wouldn’t load on the stadium WiFi. They wanted to Zoom with the bullpen. Spent most of the time telling those guys they were on mute.”

On the contrary, Hickey and Miller thought the meeting was productive. “Look, I needed to circle back on our mound visit from the previous inning and level-set expectations,” said Hickey. Miller added, “We have hard KPIs and I need Brian to spearhead the effort. Sometimes the best time to reinforce that is with 2 down in the fourth and no one on.”

Agreeing to disagree on the agenda’s pressing nature, Bluugo thinks it all could have been handled differently. “Maybe an email cc’ing the infield or even creating a private Slack channel. Like a safe space for feedback and input.” Bluugo pauses the interview to glance down at the constant ding of his corporate laptop. “Christ, it never ends. There is absolutely no work-life balance.”