Sorry to nerd out on this one, but there is a great Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called Peak Performance that puts some perspective into the challenges of competing in fastpitch softball. Even if you’re not a fan you might one to check this one out.

The part that’s interesting here is a side story involving Commander Data, the highly advanced android crew member. An outsider named Kolrami who is a grandmaster at a game called Strategema (sort of a holographic version of Space Invaders) comes on board and quickly irritates the crew with his arrogance.

A couple of crew members encourage Data to use his computer brain to take Kolrami down a peg by challenging him to a game of Strategema. At first reluctant, Data finally does it to defend the crew’s honor – and promptly gets his butt kicked by his flesh-and-blood opponent in about a minute.

Shocked, Data immediately surmises there must be something wrong with his programming and tries to take himself off duty until he figures out where the “problem” is. Captain Picard, who is captain of the ship, rather harshly tells him no he can’t do that, he needs Data, and that Data should quit sulking even though Data has no emotions and so presumably no capacity to sulk.

Then Picard tells Data something that every fastpitch softball coach, players, and parent needs to hear: It is possible to make no errors and still lose.

In our case I’m not talking only about the physical errors that get recorded in the scorebook. Playing error-free ball and losing happens all the time.

I’m talking more about the strategic decisions and approaches to the game that seem like they’re sound but still don’t produce the desired results (a win). Here’s an example.

There are runners and second and third with one out in the last inning of a one-run game. The defensive team opts to intentionally walk the next hitter to load the bases in order to create a force at home and potentially a game-ending double play at first if there’s time. They also pull their infield in to give them a better shot at that lead runner.

The next batter after that hits a duck snort single behind first base that takes a tough hop and rolls to the fence after landing fair and two runs end up scoring.

No errors were made, and the strategy was sound. But the result is still a loss.

Here’s another one from my own experience. Down one run with no outs in a game where they have been unable to hit the opponent’s pitcher, the offensive team finally gets a runner on first.

She’s a fast, smart, and aggressive baserunner, so putting the ball in play somehow could go a long way toward tying the game. The obvious solution would be a bunt to advance the runner to second, giving the offense two shots to bring her home from scoring position.

But the defense knows that and is playing for the bunt. So the offense opts for a slug bunt (show bunt, pull back, and hit the ball hard on the ground) combined with a steal of second. If the hitter can punch it through the infield the runner on first, who already has a head start, will likely end up on third and might even score, depending on how quickly the defense gets to the ball. Best case the batter will end up on second, as the potential winning run, worse case with good execution she’s on first.

Unfortunately, the batter does the one thing she can’t do in that situation – hit a weak popup to the second baseman. The batter is out and the runner who was on first gets doubled off.

Now, you can argue that the failed slug bunt was an error, but was it really? It was a failure of execution but not necessarily a mistake in the classic sense. It was just one of those cases where the hitter lost the battle to the pitcher.

The point is that sometimes, despite our best efforts and doing all we can to play the game correctly, things don’t work out the way we’d like. There are things that happen beyond our control that can influence the outcome of a play, an inning, or a game.

We can’t beat ourselves up over it or spend endless time second-guessing ourselves. We learn what we can from the experience and move on.

Sometimes we make different decisions the next time – and sometimes we don’t – and hope for a different outcome.

In case you’re wondering about Data, at the end of the episode he requests a rematch. This time he keeps the game going until Kolrami finally gives up in frustration.

When asked about it, Data explains that Kolrami entered the second game assuming both he and Data were trying to win and played accordingly. But Data’s strategy was to play not to lose, basically playing defense the whole time, until his opponent essentially forfeited the game, giving Data the victory.

Anyone who has played an international tie breaker can relate.

Not every decision you make on the field is going to work out the way you hoped, even if you’re making it for the right reasons. All you can do is learn from the experience and hope it works out better the next time.

Captain Picard photo by Stefan Kühn, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons