12. The Man Steals a Base (2)
“Safe!”
My hand found the bag, and a beat later came the graze of the catcher's glove. With the first-pitch steal good and a runner on second with nobody out, the Seorim Sports University dugout went briefly, pointedly quiet. Letting a man take second base must have bruised their pride. They'd probably never imagined that a male—me, of all people—would actually go for a steal, either.
“Nice, Kang Tae-oh!”
“He's fast! So fast!”
Our own dugout, in contrast, was electric, riding the wave of momentum my steal had handed them. And it was a big one, this theft of second—because the batters due up right behind me were Oh Yu-ra, then Kang Ra-hee, then Cha Seo-rin. If Yu-ra could poke even a single to move me over, I'd be standing at third, and Ra-hee's raw power made a sacrifice fly all but guaranteed. Even if that fell through, the chance would simply pass to Seo-rin.
By the book, then, the smart play was to sit tight on second and wait for the next hitter's swing.
...Then again, third base did look well within reach.
Pop!
“Ball!”
Ever since I'd swiped second, their starting pitcher, Lee Joo-ah, had seemed rattled, firing one ball after another that never came close. I'd widened my lead just a touch, and as the fourth pitch left her hand, I broke for third.
Pop!
“She's going!”
As if it had never crossed her mind that I might run for third, the catcher scrambled up in a panic and dropped the ball.
“Safe!”
Stolen base at third: complete.
...
Up on the mound, Lee Joo-ah's face had frozen solid. A man draws a walk, then swipes two bases back to back—any ordinary pitcher would struggle to keep her head together through that.
“Ball four!”
Sure enough, worrying about me at third, she walked Oh Yu-ra, our number-three hitter, on four straight.
Crack!
With runners on first and third and nobody out, Kang Ra-hee lifted a towering fly ball deep to right—one run in on the sacrifice fly.
It was a single run, granted. But the manner in which we'd taken it was more than enough to shake their starting pitcher's mind loose from its moorings.
“Nice, Kang Tae-oh!”
“Nice one, Ra-hee sunbae.”
“Whoa, Tae-oh, what was that?! You could steal third too?!”
“They figured a man would never run, so they weren't even holding me on. Well, it's no home run, but I'd say I did my part to put a run on the board.”
“Wait, you ran all that way just for that? I'm seriously touched, Tae-oh...”
It was more than enough to bring the dugout's energy roaring back—and more than enough to put us on the scoreboard.
No more runs crossed the plate after Ra-hee's sacrifice fly, but one way or another, we'd clawed back a one-run lead. Whether it was because we'd handed Han Yu-seul a slightly calmer mound to work from or not, her stuff was clearly sharper than it had been earlier.
“Strike three! Out!”
On the strength of that improved stuff, Yu-seul sent the leadoff hitter back to the bench on a swinging strikeout. She then gave up a single through the middle of the infield to their three-hole hitter, and just as they had all game long, the Seorim runner took off for second—
Pop!
“Out!”
—but Cha Seo-rin, coiled and waiting for exactly this, erased the would-be base stealer. Two down.
Pop!
“Out!”
The last out came off the cleanup hitter's bat, straight into the center fielder's glove, and Yu-seul closed out the inning without further incident.
Then came the bottom of the fourth. Still on the mound: Lee Joo-ah. No change yet—not with only two runs against her—but her pitch count had piled up alarmingly. With her command wobbling, the walks kept mounting; there was little she could do about it.
I need to get her pulled this inning, one way or another.
Against a pitcher with command that shaky, simply reaching base wouldn't be hard—but if I wanted to actually produce something of value with my own bat, I needed someone other than Lee Joo-ah on the mound.
So with two outs and a runner on second, I stepped back in, choked up short on the bat, and fouled off anything that drifted anywhere near the zone.
“Ball!”
“Strike!”
“Ball!”
“Foul!”
“Foul!”
“Ball!”
“Foul!”
...
...And now she's glaring at me like she wants me dead.
Doing this two at-bats in a row, I suppose any pitcher would react exactly that way. And with the count where it was, there was only one pitch she could reasonably throw—so I eased my body back off the plate and waited for it.
Whoosh!
“Wha—?!”
A pitch aimed point-blank at my body came screaming in; I ducked, and it sailed clean through the spot where I'd been standing. The catcher twisted desperately to smother it, but the ball grazed past her mitt and got away.
It was ball four either way, so my walk to first was never in question—but Han So-mi, the runner on second, seized on the wild pitch and sprinted all the way to third.
“Pitching change!”
Lee Joo-ah, having thrown at me for no good reason and turned it into a wild pitch on top of it, was yanked before she could finish the fourth—and a smile crept onto my face before I could help it.
Pop!
“Out!”
“Ahh, so close!”
The new pitcher walked Yu-ra as well, but Ra-hee's beautifully struck liner drilled straight at the first baseman—agonizingly, no runs. Still, driving Lee Joo-ah out of the game was a solid piece of work in itself. The margin was still a single run, so Seorim would have to turn to someone who could at least roughly find the zone, and the odds were good that whoever emerged would command it far better than she had.
After the bottom of the fourth's frustrating zero, the fifth stayed scoreless for both sides, the game grinding along dead even. I would have loved for it to end just like that, but baseball is rarely that kind.
Crack!
“Waaahhh!!”
With two outs and runners on second and third, their three-hole hitter lined a timely single that brought both runners home. Two runs in. Yu-seul managed to gather herself and retire the cleanup hitter on a fly ball to center, but she came down off the mound wearing a gloomy expression, the self-recrimination over surrendering the lead written all over her face.
“Haah... fuck. That pitch had to find the zone right there...”
Sure, she'd given up a run in the first—but this was a game she could have steered to six innings and one run allowed, and instead she'd let them take the lead right back. No wonder her mood was in the gutter. It probably stung all the more knowing the runners who'd scored had reached on a walk and a surprise bunt.
“Don't beat yourself up, Yu-seul sunbae.”
“...Tch. Sorry. You went and stole third, handed me a run on a plate, and I still let it all slip away.”
“Eh, we just take the lead back, that's all. Their starter's gone anyway—so I'll scrape together some runs this inning however I can and buy you that win, sunbae.”
“Pfft, listen to you. Forget the winning pitcher—just erase that loss for me and dinner's on me, Tae-oh.”
“Consider it a promise, then.”
Chatting with Yu-seul while she iced her arm in the dugout, I watched the bottom of the sixth arrive—and leadoff hitter Kim Na-hyun bounce out on a ground ball to short. Do-hee stepped in next, and since my at-bat followed hers, I was taking my cuts in the on-deck circle when she chopped the third pitch, a fastball diving in low, and bolted for first.
“Safe!”
“Haah, haah...”
Do-hee had willed an ambiguous little roller between the pitcher and the first baseman into a base hit—first and second, one out. My turn came right after, and the pitcher's sign-shuffling suddenly stretched on and on.
Well, I could hardly expect her to settle down around me.
This was the batter with two home runs on opening day—and two walks plus a run scored in today's game alone.
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
“Ball four!”
In the end, their pitcher was so dead set against facing me that she threw nothing but pitches that were never remotely close, and all I could do was take my straight four-pitch walk down to first.
“Why's she pitching around you like that? You're a guy anyway—she ought to just challenge you.”
“Are you serious? Who in their right mind challenges a guy who hit home runs in back-to-back at-bats on opening day?”
Well... fair enough.
Still, the other schools seemed to be slowly coming around to seeing me not as a man but as a home-run hitter, and honestly, that didn't feel bad at all.
Crack!
“Out!”
I'd been wrapping up that little exchange with their first baseman and refocusing on the game when a slow roller came trundling toward first. Judging that Do-hee and I—already off and running—were out of her reach, the first baseman took the sure play at first, retiring Yu-ra alone.
Which was how Kang Ra-hee came to the plate with two outs and runners on second and third.
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
“Strike!”
“Ball four!”
Facing a slugger of Ra-hee's caliber, the pitcher's command kept abandoning her, ball after ball missing its mark—and Ra-hee, too, filled first base on five pitches without once letting the bat leave her shoulder.
And so, with the bases loaded and two outs, Cha Seo-rin stepped to the plate.
...
“Cha Seo-rin! Cha Seo-rin!”
“Let's go, Seo-rin sunbae!”
It was the at-bat most likely to decide today's game, belonging to the very woman who'd already come through with a timely hit in the bottom of the second. With a flicker of tension on her face, she settled into the right-handed batter's box beside home plate.
Bases loaded, two outs. Cha Seo-rin stood at the plate.
The score read 2 to 3. One hit meant at least the tying run—and with a well-struck ball, even the lead itself was there for the taking.
Ha... fuck...
Amid an atmosphere tight enough to hum, Cha Seo-rin's heart was pounding fast. Because Kang Tae-oh's eyes, fixed on her from second base, had been needling at her attention for a while now.
Why does he keep staring like that... seriously, the pressure...
Because of what the two of them had done a few nights ago, every accidental meeting of their eyes felt dangerous. Feeling her face go hot again and again for no reason she could name, she squeezed the bat handle tight in her palm.
One hit. Whatever it takes, just one.
With the bases loaded, Seo-rin's habit was to swing from her heels hunting a home run and nothing else—but a home run wasn't what this moment needed. He wasn't her boyfriend... but whatever he was, she wanted, more than anything, to be the one to bring Kang Tae-oh home from second with her own two hands. She refused to waste the chance he'd worked so hard to hand her.
...And if she could flip this game right here, right now, then at least the next time she ended up in bed with Tae-oh, she wouldn't have a single thing to be embarrassed about.
Pop!
“Ball!”
Pop!
“Strike!”
The first pitch dove low for a ball. The second caught the outermost fringe of the strike zone.
“Send one flying, sunbae!”
I was going to anyway, punk.
Even as she fired that retort back in her head at the voice drifting over from second, the third pitch—one meant to ride in hard on her hands—slipped just wide of the strike zone. Two balls, one strike. Not a bad count, and the kind where a pitcher's mistake was most likely to appear. Without a flicker of hesitation, Cha Seo-rin's bat came around.
Crack!
The outside slider caught the sweet spot of her bat square—and took off for the gap between the right fielder and the center fielder.