A Perfect Start
On the day the Hawks' exhibition game was streamed live on YouTube, I was still reeling from the news I'd heard the day before—that I'd be in the starting lineup.
Don't get me wrong, I was proud of the work I'd put in. I just never expected to see game action this soon.
I figured at best I'd get an at-bat as a pinch-hitter or a late-inning substitute.
Jin-mo must have read the tension on my face, because he plopped down beside me and nudged my shoulder.
"Hey. You nervous or something?"
"No, sir."
"Just do what you always do. Like you did in the intrasquad game."
"...By any chance, do you have any info on Romero?"
"What info? I've never caught for the guy myself."
The pitcher I'd be working with today was Romero. We'd grown close in a hurry lately, but I'd still approached him carefully—plenty of starters get twitchy on the day they take the mound.
My worry, as it turned out, was completely misplaced. Romero greeted me with a beaming face.
"Kang. You eat yet?"
"It's a game day, so just a little. You sleep well? It's your start tomorrow."
"Couldn't be fresher. My wife knows better than to touch me the night before a start."
"...Let's just talk about the game."
Romero's arsenal centered on his fastball, backed by a hard-breaking sweeper that ran laterally and a knuckle curve with sharp downward bite.
"I'll be calling the pitch mix mostly from the bench. If you ever want something specific, tell me anytime."
"Good. Let's give 'em something to work with."
The game was being broadcast in-house on the Hawks' YouTube channel, and the moment the starting lineup went up, the chat exploded.
Half in dread, half in hope, the fans settled in as the two teams took the field.
Our exhibition opponent was the Chiba Marines. Since we'd never meet in league play, the scouting package the club provided on their players was thin—thin enough that the working summary amounted to something like: classic Japanese small-ball tendencies, and an appetite for stolen bases.
Granted, since Ohtani's rise, the number of NPB teams running pure small-ball had been shrinking. But Ichiro's fingerprints were still unmistakably all over that league.
Leading off the top of the first was Lee Won-taek. I sat in the dugout and studied the opposing pitcher closely.
His quick motion is seriously fast.
A pitcher-and-catcher league through and through—the stuff on display looked legitimately good. The KBO had been producing its own golden generation of 150 km/h-plus arms lately, to be fair, but set against Japan, the sheer volume still fell conspicuously short.
Their starter painted the corners with a crisp 153 km/h fastball and worked ahead in the count. Won-taek choked up and did his best to spoil pitches, but the sixth one got him.
As he trudged back to the dugout, one of the seniors asked, "How's his stuff?"
"The splitter's nasty. I expected it, but it drops a good half-size more than I thought it would."
He shook his head like the afternoon was going to be an uphill climb. And whether his read was right or not, the next batter, Yoon Jun-seo, went down on a groundout on the fourth pitch.
"Maybe Adam's a different story?"
"He came over from the Japanese league, right?"
When our foreign slugger stepped into the box, hope perked up on the bench.
From what I saw in practice, the man is no joke.
Adam, who'd joined us after a stint in NPB, had swung a monstrous bat all through training camp. His contact skills left something to be desired, but everyone agreed his raw power was elite.
Against all that expectation, the man uncorked a few hero swings loaded with every ounce of strength he had—and was back in the dugout before long.
"Fuck!"
"...Well, that felt good. For the catcher."
"Let's go."
At Romero's call, I snapped to and strapped on my catching gear.
And so began the Hawks' first defensive inning. I checked the sign from the bench.
First pitch, fastball.
There was no better gauge of a pitcher's condition than the heater. If the fastball wobbled, the whole game plan got that much harder.
The bench wanted it in tight. Romero wound up full-force.
Thwack—!
"Strike!"
He hadn't been lying about sleeping well. The ball buried itself right where I asked, heavy and true. The opposing hitter, evidently under orders to see as many pitches as possible, watched it calmly and gave a small nod.
Second pitch, fastball too.
This time I called for it up high. A risky spot against a slugger—but this hitter was a speed guy, not a power guy.
"Foul!"
He got the barrel to it, but the ball squirted back and was ruled foul. Ahead 0-and-2, we'd reached the classic moment for a bait pitch.
While I waited on the bench's sign, I ran the decision through my own head.
The curveball works. The sweeper works too, honestly....
A sweeper running away from a right-handed hitter, a solid curve—either was live.
If it were me....
The instant the pitch type crystallized in my mind, the same sign came in from the bench.
Curveball for strike three.
The last pitch had been up in the zone, so the afterimage would still be burned into the hitter's eyes. The prediction landed dead on.
"Strike three! Out!"
He flailed at the curve as it dropped off the table in front of the plate. Whether it was all that special training with Hyeon-woo and Jin-mo or something else, my blocking was rock-solid all inning.
A three-pitch strikeout, a feels-good start. Romero flashed a grin.
The next hitter was cut from similar cloth as the leadoff man. In Major League Baseball lately, the fashion has been strong No. 2 hitters—lineups stacking muscle high in the order. But NPB and the KBO still favored the traditional mold: high on-base, quick feet.
Whoosh—!
"Ball."
The low fastball I'd called for dove out of the zone. For the second pitch, I went with a sweeper sweeping off the outside edge, and the batter's bat trailed after it.
"Strike!"
As I flipped the ball back to the pitcher, my gaze drifted to the hitter.
That's an... unusual batting stance.
Having been drilled in the White Room to hold my follow-through to the bitter end, I found it genuinely fascinating how this hitter's body was already turning toward first the instant the ball left his bat.
He's doing everything he can just to get on base.
The third pitch unfolded with me very aware of the short, choked-up grip. Suicide squeeze? The batter squared the bat around, timed to the fastball.
Tink—
He bled the speed off the ball toward third and bolted for first. He'd deadened it so perfectly that neither the pitcher nor the third baseman had a play.
"Mine!"
I ripped off my mask and dove for the ball. That's going to be close. A bad throw here and the runner takes second for free. I wavered for half a heartbeat—then chose to gamble. I snatched the ball and, without a single step, fired to first.
In a race decided by the slimmest of margins, the ball hissed into the first baseman's glove.
"......"
The first base umpire stood frozen for an eternity—then thrust out his fist.
"Out!"
"Yes!"
While our players roared, the Japanese hitter shook his head in disappointment. I was still exhaling in relief when Romero appeared out of nowhere and slapped my back.
"Phew."
"What the hell, Kang!? That was completely insane!"
"Practice pays off, I guess."
"Keep doing that, and I'll throw a perfect game."
"It's only the first inning?"
One step—a planting of the foot—and the throw would've been late. Looks like all those sit-and-throw reps in the White Room came in handy.
We retired the next batter on a fly ball and walked off the field on light feet.
It was only the bottom of the first, but one highlight-reel play was all it took to send the comments sprinting ahead of themselves. Watching it all from the stands, Min-jun moved to manage the narrative.
"Our rookies are looking pretty good, aren't they?"
"It's still the first inning. Let's wait and see."
Big expectations breed big disappointments—it's the natural law. With his son's starting job not yet guaranteed, restraint was the order of the day. He clamped down on the corners of his mouth, which kept threatening to lift, and forced a stern expression.
Romero's perfect-game declaration did not survive long.
The heart of the Hawks' order had gone down in order without so much as a whiff of a rally, and we were back on defense for the bottom of the second.
Pop—
I caught it in the mitt and looked up at the home plate umpire.
"Ball."
And there it was—a walk. Chiba Marines' cleanup hitter, their No. 4, had battled to a full count and worked his way aboard as the leadoff man.
The next batter squared to bunt the instant he stepped in.
Fake bunt and slash?
But against the high fastball that followed, he pulled the bat back. This was their No. 5, a pillar of the lineup—a man you'd expect to swing away.
Apparently they'd decided getting on the board first mattered more.
I glanced at the bench. The sign came down: let the bunt stand.
Tink—
Chiba traded an out for a runner at second. Then the next batter, their No. 6, split left-center to drive in a run.
1–0.
Thankfully the following hitter rolled into a 6–4–3 double play, and the inning died right there.
"It's fine! It's fine!"
You'd think he'd be sour about it, but Romero rapped his glove and fired up his fielders all the same.
Now it was my turn at the plate. I swapped out my gear and took my practice swings. Facing an unfamiliar pitcher, our hitters had gone down without so much as a flicker of resistance.
Two outs, nobody on. I stepped into the box and cinched my batting glove tight.
Just do what I always do.
With the bases empty, the danger was over-swinging. Holding my own rhythm mattered more than anything.
Whoosh—!
The first pitch—a strike on the outer half. Their starter threw little but splitters and sliders; his underlying pitch design was nearly identical to Romero's.
Think like the battery—me and the opposing catcher.
Until recently, my entire approach at the plate had been swing out of my shoes somehow. In the White Room, I'd been fed random sequences from the pitching machine.
But all that defensive work lately had taught me something: when you think from the battery's side of the ball, hitting actually gets easier.
Second pitch is almost certainly offspeed.
Right on cue, the pitcher released a slider diving off the outside corner. I say this about myself, but my frame runs bigger than the average hitter's—no pitcher likes looking at that. He'd clearly taken it to heart, because he was attacking exclusively away.
Pitch three: a ball that just barely missed the border. On pitch four I reacted to the high fastball and connected, but popped it sky-high for a foul.
Two balls, two strikes. Dead even.
He's got breathing room in the count—odds are good he goes to a bait pitch here.
Was it just my imagination, or was that Won-taek's advice echoing back to me? Right about now, the pitcher would have his single best pitch flickering at the front of his mind.
I settled into my stance with offspeed on the brain. The pitcher fired—same lightning-quick motion as always.
It was a sliver of a moment, but I read the spin and simply knew.
Splitter.
I'd never seen this pitcher's splitter before, so I mapped out its trajectory on instinct. A ball that falls off the table right at the plate. I leaned my upper body back a touch farther and drove the swing upward, lifting through the bottom of the ball.
Ping—!
Aw, come on.
I'd been so busy hearing Won-taek's voice in my head that I'd clipped the very bottom of the ball, sending the launch angle soaring. The silver lining: the exit velocity was solid. I ran flat-out.
The ball floated up, kept carrying, kept carrying—then kissed the top of the wall and dropped back to the field.
I'd been running full tilt for third, but when the base coach flashed the hold sign, I pulled up at second.
Half an inch better contact and that's gone.
Clicking his tongue at the near-miss, Kang Hyuk raised his hands into the shape of a hawk—his team's signature celebration—and the YouTube chat detonated.