I think baseball has such a way of humbling you. You can go 20-for-20, and before you know it, you're going to go through an 0-for-30. It has that way of knocking you back down to earth.
He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.