15. The Man Meets the Ace (2)
The pitch came in riding a touch high, kissed my bat, and sailed away toward right field.
With nothing behind the swing but a vague, uncertain feeling, I sprinted for first like my life depended on it—only to watch the ball settle into the glove of the right fielder, who had drifted back a few steps.
Pop!
"Out!"
A flyout to right on a ball damp with drizzle. Better than the strikeout in my first at-bat, at least. I trudged back to the dugout and peeled off my batting gloves.
...Maybe I shouldn't have swung. Left alone, that pitch probably misses. Or maybe I should have been hunting the high one from the start, letting the bat fly from the very first pitch.
"Out!"
"Strike three! Out!"
That was the end of the top of the fourth for us—Oh Yu-ra right behind me on a groundout, then Kang Ra-hee hacking at empty air for strike three. The 1–0 deficit we couldn't seem to dent was starting to feel strangely, impossibly wide.
She was getting no run support, but Han Yu-seul was still up on that mound, walling off the opposing lineup like it was her personal property. In the bottom of the fourth she'd dispatched Myeongjin's order starting from their three-hole hitter—a grounder to second, a flyout to left, a tapper to short.
The problem was that our own bats were every bit as stubbornly jammed shut.
"Out!"
"Strike three! Out!"
"Out!"
The top of the fifth—Cha Seo-rin, then Do Yeon-seo, then Seo Ma-ri—went down one, two, three as well. If only Cha Seo-rin's scalded line drive hadn't been snagged by the third baseman, we'd have had a leadoff runner and a genuine shot at evening the score, but Myeongjin wasn't leaving a single crack open today, on defense every bit as much as on the mound.
"Agh, damn it, nothing wants to go our way today."
Cha Seo-rin hung her head in the dugout, grumbling to herself—the one ball she'd squared up all afternoon, and it got robbed as a lineout.
Han Yu-seul went back out for the bottom of the fifth and picked up two quick outs on a swinging strikeout and a grounder to second; she did surrender a single to the eight-hole hitter, but sat the nine-hole hitter right back down on strikes to escape unscored upon. Her pitch count stood at a comfortable 64, too—frankly, the best rhythm I'd seen out of her all game.
We can't let a game like this get away without scoring. Losing while your pitcher deals, just because the bats went cold—that's the kind of defeat that burrows under your skin and stays there.
As the top of the sixth opened and Han So-mi stepped in as our leadoff hitter, I eased over to the on-deck circle and murmured, carefully, to Kim Na-hyun.
"Na-hyun sunbae."
"...Huh? Uh—yeah?"
"You don't have to get on base. Just make her throw as many pitches as you possibly can."
Yoon Se-ah's count stood at 58 as the inning began. She was throwing at a pace that could carry her all the way to a shutout, so for now the priority was inflating that number and shoving her off the mound. Honestly, I wasn't confident I'd hit her in my next at-bat either—but if we could at least force her out before my final trip to the plate, I could see a path to winning this.
"Mmm... yeah, Yoon Se-ah's stuff is pretty tight, isn't it?"
"It is."
"...Okay. Since it's your request, Tae-oh, I'll give it everything I've got."
"No need to fight for fouls, though. Just don't swing until you've got two strikes on you—watch as many as you can take."
"...Mm."
Kim Na-hyun nodded along with my words, like she'd just sworn herself to some quiet resolution.
"Oppa, what about me?"
Min Do-hee, who had clearly been eavesdropping and was plainly hoping I'd hand her instructions too, came bounding in—so I gave her the easy answer.
"Do-hee, you just swing at whatever you like. Don't go picking pitches and wasting your chance."
"Yes, sir!"
"Strike three! Out!"
Han So-mi, our eight-hole hitter, had made the first out, and with Na-hyun under orders to grind, we'd almost certainly be down two by the end of her plate appearance. Asking Do-hee to work the count on top of that felt like asking for nothing; better she swing freely—at least a wild cut might find grass, and if those legs got her aboard, they might just get her home.
"Strike one!"
Maybe my request was weighing on her: Kim Na-hyun calmly let the first pitch—a four-seamer right over the heart of the plate—go by without a swing.
...Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. That one she could have turned into a clean single, easily, and I felt a twinge of guilt for talking her into taking it. But not a trace of regret crossed her face as she settled in, quiet and patient, for the next pitch.
"Ball one!"
"Ball two!"
"Strike two!"
"Ball three!"
From there the Myeongjin battery started firing nothing but bait pitches in a row, and the rhythm they'd built seemed to snap—the count ran full. Yoon Se-ah pawed at the rosin bag once, then coaxed at Na-hyun's bat again with a slider that buried itself low.
"Ball four!"
"Haaah..."
Kim Na-hyun had held off on the swing to the very last instant and fought her way aboard with a walk.
I gave her a thumbs-up in salute—well done.
Kim Na-hyun, words apparently failing her, just smiled back from first base, looking faintly sheepish.
Min Do-hee stepped in, but no bunt sign came. One out, after all—Coach Yoon Gaeul had evidently judged that trading an out just to nudge the runner to second would cost us more than it bought.
I watched her at-bat from the on-deck circle: she took the first pitch, then swung at the second.
Crack!
"Out!"
Do-hee's soft grounder rolled toward second base, and Kim Na-hyun was forced out there.
"Safe!"
"Hah... hah... hah..."
But those legs—sprinting at full tilt, Min Do-hee somehow clawed first base away for herself. A ball one heartbeat away from a double play, held to a single out on the lead runner by nothing but pure speed.
Pop!
"Safe!"
Pop!
"Safe!"
The pitcher threw over to first twice in a row at Do-hee as she loosened up off the bag, but couldn't touch her—and then Do-hee, as if cowed by the pickoffs, pretended to trim her lead a little...
Dash!
The instant the pitcher began her motion, she was gone.
"Strike!"
A strike, buried deep inside. The ball sat exactly where I'd expected it. I kept my bat on my shoulder anyway.
"Safe!"
And blessedly, as if to repay my patience, Min Do-hee slid in safe at second.
"Atta girl, Do-hee!"
"She's fast—that girl is fast!"
Two outs, a runner on second—conjured out of a mere ground ball by nothing but wheels. Truthfully, I felt a little more at ease with Do-hee on second than I would have with Na-hyun. She was the fastest runner on our entire roster, after all, which meant even a soft single with two away would be enough to even the score.
Crack!
The two-seamer skimming the outer half, down, found my bat and skittered out in front of the right fielder.
"Run!"
"Home! Go home!"
Do-hee, running from the crack of the bat, was already rounding third.
"Safe!"
By the time I'd reached first and caught my breath, she'd slid across home and come up grinning, her uniform plastered head to toe in infield dust.
"Nice slide, Min Do-hee!"
"That's it, Tae-oh!"
One run back—finally, in the sixth.
Pop!
"Out!"
The next hitter, Oh Yu-ra, rolled one to second on the third pitch, so no insurance run—but the dugout was already well and truly simmering.
...If only baseball were a sport you could win on momentum alone.
We'd only just clawed level in the top of the sixth, and in the very next frame Han Yu-seul walked straight into the fire.
Crack!
"Safe!"
She gave up a leadoff single to left to their one-hole hitter, and the momentum we'd worked so hard to seize began drifting somewhere ugly again.
Pop!
"Out!"
The next batter at least rolled into a force at short—runner still aboard, one down—but the real trouble came after that.
Crack!
"Ah—!"
Han Yu-seul's voice rang off the mound the instant contact was made; she knew it was extra bases. The three-hole hitter's drive, shot the other way, split the right-center gap clean in two.
The right fielder chased it down and fired it back in, but Myeongjin's two-hole hitter was already rounding third.
Pop!
"Safe!"
No out at home—the run scored, 2–1—and while we were busy contesting the plate, the batter herself cruised into third.
"...Whew."
Han Yu-seul took the ball back, bowed her head for one long breath, then squared up against the next hitter like nothing had happened.
"Strike three! Out!"
"Out!"
From there she stemmed the tide—a strikeout, then a foul pop gathered in by the third baseman—no further damage done. But her face said plenty.
"Haah... sorry, guys. You scratch out one run for me and I hand it right back."
"The hell are you apologizing for, man? Show me a pitcher alive who never gives up a run."
Cha Seo-rin drummed her shoulder, doing her best to talk her down, but Han Yu-seul's expression wouldn't crack an inch.
"Lighten up, sunbae. I'll just wipe that loss off your record again today, like always."
"Save it, you brat. Even I've got some shame left."
"You've still got room in your count, right? Go the full eighth and I'll buy you the win, too."
Thump.
"That is, if your mouth can actually cash that check..."
My joke earned me a soft fist between the shoulder blades—and then a whisper in my ear, her voice gone suddenly earnest.
"Fine, let's give the damn thing a shot. You did promise you'd feed me that win?"
And with that, the storm in her face settled into something lighter—a smile with a little air in it at last.
The chance to buy Han Yu-seul her win arrived sooner than I'd expected. The seventh flew by in a heartbeat, both teams retired in order, and our turn came back around in the top of the eighth, opening with seven-hole hitter Seo Ma-ri.
Still on the mound: Myeongjin's ace, Yoon Se-ah. Her pitch count stood at 88—by the look of it, she had at least one more inning left in the tank.
"Strike three! Out!"
"Out!"
Her velocity had dipped a tick, but the stuff was still nasty; she opened the inning by snapping up two outs in the space of a breath, a strikeout and a groundball.
Well. Can't be helped.
I'd finally started getting a read on her, and given the choice I'd have loved one last crack at Yoon Se-ah—but the way this was going, my chance probably wasn't coming. I was taking dry swings in front of the dugout, already resigning myself to hunting for one big swing off their reliever in the ninth, when—
"Ball four!"
"...Phew!"
Kim Na-hyun laid off another dropping pitch with the count 3-and-1 and fought her way aboard with a two-out walk.
"Ball four!"
"Haaaaah..."
And then Min Do-hee, after a full-count war, watched an outside four-seamer shave just barely off the plate—back-to-back reaches for her, too.
And so a chance that felt like fate's own prank came waltzing up to my door once more: two outs, runners on first and second.
One single ties it.
I'd already come through with a timely knock earlier in the game, and if I went the other way again, I figured I could scrape one out somehow. The catch was that we still had two innings left to hold down—and at this rate, my next at-bat probably never came in the top of the ninth. With a speedster parked on first and two away, even a double put the go-ahead run squarely in play. And I happened to be catching Yoon Se-ah at the precise moment her stuff had begun to slip. Here—here, I had to swing for the jugular.
"Ball!"
First pitch: a slider off the outside edge.
"Foul!"
I chopped at an inside four-seamer on the second pitch, but my timing ran a hair late—foul.
"Ball!"
I held up on a low splitter for the third, and the count ran 2-and-1.
Yoon Se-ah's face had gone taut, and the sign exchanges with her catcher were stretching longer and longer. In my head, I began striking pitches off her list, one by one.
Her slider and splitter were leaking outside the zone right now, so whatever came next would almost certainly be a two-seamer or a four-seamer. Walk me, and she'd have loaded the bases on three straight free passes—no ace on earth wants that. This pitch, she'd want a strike in there if she could get one.
And in a moment like this, there was only one pitch a pitcher could ever reach for: the one she trusted most.
A four-seamer, climbing the top of the zone.
I cocked my bat upright and waited, betting the ump was ringing up the high heat—and right on cue, Yoon Se-ah's fastball came flying in upstairs.
CRACK!!
The crisp, clean sound of a perfectly-barreled ball—and a roar blew the lid off the Chaewon University dugout.