I'm putting it down Gunny,

• Pitcher!Brad who, upon seeing the end of season highlights of this scrappy little tweaker of a catcher, just confirmed what he already knew. That he wanted Rat to replace his catcher who had been traded away at the end of the season. It took some string pulling to get his shit-for-brains coaching staff to agree to a catcher like Ray, but with his stats and Brad's sway over the team, it didn't take too long. Before spring, Ray was signed and on the way to Arizona for training.

• Pitcher!Brad and Catcher!Ray who after the months of spring training are basically a bonded pair, pls don't separate thank you very much. At first no one can understand why a starting pitcher with a reputation of being stone cold on the mound would want a mouthy 22 year old behind his plate, calling his shots. But it works, like really well. Ray learns everything about how Brad operates on the mound knows exactly when to challenge him; calling pitches Brad almost forgot he had in his arsenal. And damn him, it's always the right call for the strike out.

• Catcher!Ray who has learned and memorized every aspect of Brad's pitch to the point where he can tell exactly when he starts to get tired. His outside form remains perfect, but Ray knows better. He doesn't need the speedometer on the outfield wall to tell him Brad's pitches are slowing down. He can feel it in the way they hit his glove.

• Pitcher!Brad who, unbeknownst to the cameras and commentators, calls Ray every insult in the book when he jogs up to the mound to suggest they call in the relief pitcher in the top of the 6th. It's quite the picture: Brad, all of 6'4 and then some on the elevated mound, right up in his catcher's face and Ray, mask pushed to the top of his head, eye black smeared down his cheeks, just letting Brad get it all out because yes, he knows Brad thinks he has another inning in him, but Ray knows better and in the end, Brad relents. He tells himself it's to escape the rage from their head PT. But the rest of the team know better. No catcher has ever been able to make Brad leave the mound of his own volition like that. Interesting.

• Catcher!Ray who is just slightly less familiar with the relief and closing pitchers to really show who his favorite is. Of course, neither one of them can see how deep that favoritism runs, but the bullpen and the rest of the team isn't blind.