Two Outs, Runner on Second
Two outs, a runner on second.
Lee Won-taek had been watching Kang Hyuk's double from the on-deck circle, and he let out a hollow laugh.
Whew. Does this kid even know what nerves are?
By the time spring training had run its course, nobody questioned Kang Hyuk's talent anymore. Things had gotten so bad that the newly hired hitting coach had swallowed his pride as a leader and actually tried to learn Kang Hyuk's hitting mechanics.
But having talent and having it translate into real-game results were two entirely different matters. Plenty of players could demolish the minor-league level only to vanish the moment they set foot on the first-team stage — he could name more than a few.
Won-taek had already squared off against the opposing pitcher once in his previous at-bat, and he was certain of one thing: the man on the mound right now was among the best arms in the entire KBO.
Watching Kang Hyuk hit that kind of pitcher with pure showmanship, Won-taek felt like he was seeing proof that there was a good reason Jin-mo hyung and the manager treasured the kid so much.
Heard the manager and the head coach had a huge fight a few days ago.
They'd raised their voices so loudly in the tactics room that the news had spread through the whole camp. It was probably over the starting lineup, and if Kang Hyuk kept performing like this, the weight would inevitably tip toward the manager's side.
Which means I can't just sit around either.
The seniority gap between them was enormous. No way he could stomach being dragged along by a junior at the cost of his own pride.
Adjusting his helmet to eye level, Won-taek locked his focus on the opposing pitcher.
Right now, seeing more pitches mattered less than bringing the runner home.
Look for the fastball.
The lineup had cycled through once, but he still didn't have real conviction he could handle the opponent's splitter. Better to take his swing at something earlier in the count.
He barely held his bat on the first-pitch slider, then swung hard on the second.
Crack—!
Won-taek's ball sailed over the second baseman's head and dropped into right field for a single.
But the ball came off the bat hot, and the right fielder pounced on it in no time.
Will the timing work out?
Second base felt like a stretch, so he pulled up at first and looked back — and there was the third-base coach whirling his arm like a windmill.
Kang Hyuk charged through second and dove headfirst into third, and the Chiba Marines' right fielder fired the ball straight home.
Won-taek watched with his heart in his throat, and his mouth fell open.
Why is he so fast?
Catchers were usually plodders on the basepaths — slow-moving freight trains. Most of them carried some serious bulk, and all that time crouched behind the plate meant knee complaints were practically an occupational hazard.
But Kang Hyuk's lower half was clearly pure muscle. He strode down the line in powerful bounds and slid headfirst into home with timing to spare.
He hadn't even glanced at the throw — total focus on the run.
"Yes!"
Seeing the guy spring to his feet the instant the safe call came down and break into a celebration, Won-taek found himself laughing without meaning to.
How long has it been since we scored like this?
It was an open secret that the Hawks' bottom of the lineup was a row of houseplants. Fans of other teams joked that keeping the Hawks' lower order off the scoreboard went without saying, and that the real challenge was making them burn pitches.
For Won-taek, who had always stepped to the plate as leadoff hitter with the bases empty, the current situation felt almost foreign.
It won't be long before Kang Hyuk moves into the heart of the order.
Honestly, he couldn't quite bring himself to agree with Jin-mo hyung talking about a championship on the strength of one player. But there was no denying that Kang Hyuk was a once-in-a-franchise, all-time great rookie talent.
This year's Rookie of the Year race is going to be fun.
Not since Kim Hyun-woo senior had the Hawks produced a Rookie of the Year. If Kang Hyuk kept up performances like this one, he'd be in the race for sure.
If I want to scoop up a few crumbs, I'd better stick close to him.
Ever since a photo had circulated online showing his DM inbox overflowing with unread messages, the number of fans approaching him had dropped sharply. But hang around Kang Hyuk, and people would come talk to him just out of curiosity about the kid.
Starved as he was for fan attention, Won-taek found himself impatiently counting down to Opening Day.
With me crossing the plate, the game settled into a 1-1 equilibrium.
Maybe it was because the lineup had turned over. Both teams kept putting runners on base, but the two ace pitchers kept plugging the leaks inning after inning, refusing to give up another run.
I managed to draw a walk in the top of the fifth, but it didn't amount to anything.
And so the razor-thin balance held — until the bottom of the fifth, when things went sideways.
We'd dispatched the nine-hole hitter without incident, and I was facing the Chiba Marines' leadoff man when it happened.
Crack—!
The slider I threw on the fifth pitch turned into an ordinary ground ball — which Yoon Jun-seo senior, playing third base, promptly dropped.
Senior usually manned the DH spot, but the manager had started him at third for the entire spring camp.
Romero gave the apologetic-looking Jun-seo a wave that said it was nothing.
Runner on first due to an infield error.
When the opposing runner on first stretched his lead, Romero fired over to pick him off. Twice he threw, twice the runner held his ground.
Maybe it was the runner gnawing at him, or maybe the error still weighed on his mind — either way, Romero's next pitch skipped past me. A wild pitch.
It slipped out of his hand early and rolled away to my right, and the runner naturally advanced to second.
The record would show a wild pitch, but I couldn't hide my frustration.
If I'd moved half a step sooner……
Sure, that was a ball most catchers would have missed. Still, the thought wouldn't stop gnawing at me: if my legs had gotten moving first, couldn't I have hauled it in?
Deciding I needed to reset, I called time to the umpire and jogged out to the mound.
"Romero. You okay?"
"No problem. It just slipped out early, that's all."
"I should have caught that for you."
"Are you kidding? Major league catchers couldn't have grabbed that one. That one's on me."
His confidence had every reason to waver, yet Romero kept the conversation going with a smile. He playfully jabbed a finger at my chest.
"We gave up second anyway, so I'm throwing my curveball as the put-away pitch this time."
"What?"
"My ball drops like a dream, and Kang's going to catch it beautifully."
Even in a moment like this, he was finding an indirect way to say he trusted my defense.
I came out here to steady the pitcher's head, and……
For a moment it felt like our roles had reversed, and something odd stirred in my chest. Then I just nodded.
"Throw whatever you want. You could throw ten wild pitches and I'd catch every one."
"Yeah? Then I'm burying every single one in the dirt."
"…As long as it fools the hitter."
"You got it, partner. The perfect game's sailed off to sea, so just get me through seven."
I nodded and settled back behind the plate, pounding my fist into the mitt.
The duel stretched to five pitches — and for the first time all game, Romero signaled first.
Curveball.
I confirmed it through the PitchCom and nodded.
With a runner aboard, Romero worked from the set position. His pivot foot turned, his lead leg lifted. The stride opened, his arm whipped through with power. The ball he'd disguised to the very last instant through deception seemed headed high in the zone — then dropped off a cliff just in front of the plate.
Whooom—
The batter's bat sliced through empty air.
I secured the ball cleanly and turned the inside of the mitt toward the umpire.
"Strike three!"
After that called-swingout strikeout, the next batter went down on a routine out as well.
Having escaped the jam, Romero couldn't contain himself and let out a roar.
"Come on!"
On the walk back to the dugout, Yoon Jun-seo senior came up to me — the same man who'd committed the error earlier.
"Hey, Hyuk."
"Yes, senior."
"Could you tell Romero I'm sorry?"
"Why not tell him yourself…?"
"I've got, uh, an English phobia."
He added that talking to a starting pitcher scared him half to death on top of it. When I relayed it, Romero just laughed it off.
"He says if you're sorry, repay it with runs."
"Watch me work this at-bat, then."
Jun-seo senior strode to the plate full of bluster — and promptly grounded into a double play a few pitches later.
"Also, I have a Japanese phobia……"
"…I see."
When would he even need Japanese?
The game rolled on. Of the two starters who'd been grinding their way through six innings, the first to come out was Romero.
Top of the seventh. His pitch count had climbed to ninety, and when he walked the leadoff hitter, the pitching coach jogged out with the ball.
"Good work out there."
"…Understood."
Romero came off, and relief pitcher Cha Woo-jin senior took the mound in his place.
A hard-thrower with a 155 km/h fastball — a rarity in Korea — he was a two-pitch pitcher who leaned heavily on his slider. He'd been throwing well in bullpen sessions.
But the moment the game began, trouble erupted. The instant Woo-jin senior started his windup, the runner on first took off for second.
I dropped into my throw-down stance the moment the ball hit my mitt, but there was simply no throw to make.
Too late.
No matter how much I polished my pop time, if the delivery timing dragged, a caught-stealing was impossible. The runner swiped second, the next batter punched a single through, and the score flipped to 2-1.
This is bad.
Unlike the two starters with their quick deliveries, Woo-jin senior's windup took noticeably long. My read proved correct — the Chiba Marines hitters reached base however they could, then ran on him at every opportunity.
After getting stolen on twice, Woo-jin senior's mental game collapsed entirely.
When the pitching change came in the eighth, I finally nailed a runner trying to steal and proved my arm — but the game had already tipped. The gap between the two teams stretched to 4-1.
Romero, who'd left the mound with runners on, took the loss as expected. And for me, fresh off my second hit of the day, it was a game that left a bitter taste.
The moment we lost, the comments sections filled up with a barrage of criticism aimed at the manager — as if no one had been singing his praises a day earlier. But not every fan felt that way.
Right after the game ended, Lee Won-taek senior stopped by our room.
Same as last time, he fished a couple of beer cans out of his bag.
"So I'm standing there and I think, yep — sit on the fastball. That's the read."
"Ooh!"
He spent a full twenty minutes recounting his heroics, and as the junior in the room, I had to keep nodding along in impressed amazement.
"And then the fastball I've been waiting for comes screaming in, and the ball looks as big as a watermelon."
"A watermelon, give me a break."
"You've never gotten a hit, hyung, so you wouldn't know."
Jin-mo senior, fresh off an 0-for-4 day, took a long swig of his beer.
"If you've got nothing useful to say, get out of my room!"
"Aw, come on, just hear me out. I was thinking about how I actually got that hit, and it took me right back to our training camp in LA. Man, that was brutal……"
As the senior launched into the same story for the umpteenth time, my mind drifted elsewhere.
Back when I'd first come out of the White Room, I'd figured my passion for baseball had burned out from all that endless hitting practice. But now, playing in front of actual crowds, I was feeling something different.
Baseball… is fun.
It must have just been the White Room I hated. The love of the game was still in me after all.
And alongside that feeling came another thought.
I want to be better.
Romero today, everyone around me looking out for me — the desire to live up to their expectations kept circling in my head.
"Hey. Hyuk. You listening?"
"Huh? Yes!"
"This punk was off in la-la land."
While Won-taek senior ribbed me, Jin-mo senior asked with a worried look on his face.
"Is it because we lost? Don't sweat it. Baseball's a game where even the best teams drop four out of every ten."
"That's right. If you ride every single game on an emotional rollercoaster, how are you going to survive 144 of them?"
I waved my hands dismissively.
"It's not that."
"The real season starts after Opening Day. All that matters is showing up then."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Out of nowhere, Won-taek senior smacked Jin-mo senior on the shoulder.
"Shall we go get some fresh air, sir?"
"You need to quit the cigarettes."
"I smoke way less than most players, thank you very much."
With the seniors gone, my eyes drifted naturally to the beer cans they'd left behind.