A Man Leaps Into the Starting Lineup (2)
The moment my name was called, the air around us froze solid. Every Blue team player. Every White team player. Even Cha Seo-rin, who had been toying with her catcher's mask hanging off one finger and grinning just seconds ago, stood staring at me with her mouth slightly open.
"…Kang Tae-oh?"
"Seriously?"
"Designated hitter?"
"A guy?"
One muttered murmur was all it took for the buzz to spread. Fragments of chatter drifted toward my ears, but strangely, none of it really landed — because for a second there, I'd been wondering if I'd misheard too.
"Quiet."
The instant Director Yoon Gaeul's voice dropped, the murmuring players shut their mouths. She folded her lineup card without so much as a glance in my direction.
"Don't get the wrong idea. This isn't me putting a male player in because I've decided to recognize him."
Her gaze swept across the gathered players.
"I'm putting you in to check one thing, exactly once. Whether Kang Tae-oh is actually someone who deserves to stand in a batter's box — or whether last time, you simply got lucky and happened to connect with Harin's mistake pitch."
"…"
"So all of you, cut the chatter and get ready."
"Yes, Coach!"
The players answered to Director Yoon Gaeul's charisma, but their eyes stayed pinned on me all the same. And in the middle of it all, I was quietly smiling to myself.
Good.
This much was enough. The thought that I would stand in the batter's box again was setting something slowly alight deep in my chest — and this time it wasn't some fluke opportunity conjured up by an injury, like before. It was official. Just seeing my name written on Director Yoon Gaeul's lineup card was enough to make my heart pound.
"Tae-oh Oppa."
Min Do-hee, whose name had been called for leadoff and center field, was still looking up at me with her eyes gone round.
"You're really starting today?"
"…Tell me about it."
I must have looked as dazed as I felt, because Min Do-hee giggled softly.
"Congratulations."
"Thanks."
Her congratulations carried neither jab nor mockery — only sincerity — and when I answered with a smile, she lit up and bounded off to grab her gear.
Behind her came Cha Seo-rin, finished with her preparations for the top of the first.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"What is going on? What did you do to the Coach?"
"I just found out myself."
"…Has the Coach finally lost her mind."
Cha Seo-rin looked me up and down. A plain training uniform, not even a proper game kit. Apparently the sight of me making the lineup dressed like that looked every bit as absurd to her as it did to me.
"Well. Congratulations anyway."
"Thank you."
"But don't go dreaming about winning. Not that I'm looking down on you, Tae-oh, but your opponent is Harin."
"…That's something you only find out by trying."
"You hit one lousy mistake pitch and now you think you're a real hitter."
I didn't dispute a word of it. The pitch I'd taken off her days ago had absolutely been a mistake. And now that she had another chance to face me, there was no way she'd hand me a second one.
I couldn't speak for anyone else, but at least in my at-bat, she would try to bury me with her genuine stuff.
"Still, I've got to do what I can."
"Pfft. Now that I like."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"…Just don't go hurting yourself pushing too hard for nothing."
Before I could decide whether that was a joke or the real thing, she was already walking off toward the White team's dugout.
And then the game began.
As the designated-hitter side batting second, I had no reason to set foot on the field in the top of the first. No — going by my slot in the order, my first at-bat wouldn't come until around the bottom of the third at the earliest. The opposing starter was Baek Ha-rin, after all.
Still, it felt strange to be crouched in the dugout picking out a helmet and a bat instead of roaming around straightening equipment like I usually did.
A start in the lineup… almost five years, hasn't it been.
The last one I could remember was from my independent-league days in my previous life. Leaning against the dugout rail among the other players, caught somewhere between the familiar and the foreign, I heard the coach filling in as umpire call out.
"Play ball!"
Top of the first.
Blue team's starting pitcher: Han Yu-seul. A fourth-year right-hander — nothing like the overwhelming stuff Baek Ha-rin possessed, but the type with steady command and a good feel for running a game. And like Baek Ha-rin, today was her final audition for a rotation spot.
Pop!
"Strike!"
She drilled a strike into the zone with her very first pitch, and applause broke out from the Blue dugout. She'd looked nervous, but the ball wasn't bad at all.
Crack!
"Out!"
And so the top of the first closed out with a groundout, a flyout, and a strikeout.
"Nice one, Yu-seul!"
"Your stuff's on today!"
Han Yu-seul came down off the mound with a light exhale, and the bottom of the first began. Blue team's offense. Taking the mound, naturally, was Baek Ha-rin, who nodded at the sign Cha Seo-rin put down from behind the plate.
And stepping into the box was the No. 1 hitter, Min Do-hee, fresh off a nice running catch in center during the top of the inning.
Crack!
A surprise bunt from her very first at-bat. She was playing to her specialty — that blazing speed of hers. It was a decent bunt, the ball skipping toward first base, but…
Pop!
"Out!"
Baek Ha-rin charged off the mound the instant the ball left her hand, and Min Do-hee was retired on a first-pitch groundout.
Not so easy after all, huh.
She'd probably been mindful of it from the start. Ask anyone in the Chaewon University baseball club who the best surprise bunter was, and the answer would be Min Do-hee without a second's hesitation. And when you got down to it, the reason Baek Ha-rin had surrendered that game-tying two-run homer to me in the first place was partly Min Do-hee's bunt single. Of course she couldn't afford to overlook her.
The next hitter was the No. 2 batter, Seo Ma-ri. Her bat snapped out a beat late against Baek Ha-rin's opening pitch, a high four-seam fastball.
Pop!
"Strike!"
Then a slider off the outside corner, and another high four-seam boring in.
"Strike!"
"Strike three!"
The moment she collected a three-pitch strikeout on three whiffs, the dugout went briefly silent. The velocity, the movement, even the seasoned instinct to read what a hitter was thinking. Cha Seo-rin's pitch-calling mattered, of course — but in the end, it was Baek Ha-rin's ability to put the ball exactly where Cha Seo-rin asked that made it all work.
"Strike three!"
The next batter fought her way to a full count, but she went down looking too. Baek Ha-rin closed out the inning on ten pitches flat.
She's relentless. Genuinely.
Then the top of the second rolled around.
Crack!
"Out!"
One out came off an ordinary grounder to second — a hitter forcing himself at Han Yu-seul's low first pitch. Before the next batter, Cha Seo-rin, stepped into the box, she caught my eye and mouthed at me.
Watch this.
Then, as if to prove her own point, she lazily slapped an outside fastball the other way.
Crack!
The ball skimmed past the first baseman, and Cha Seo-rin cruised into first with a comfortable single to right — then flashed a V with her fingers at me again.
"Nice batting!"
One out, runner on first. But Han Yu-seul didn't fold easily either. She mixed four-seams, sliders, and forkballs through a full-count duel, and her eighth pitch to the No. 6 hitter tailed in hard on the batter's hands.
Crack!
The hitter was a touch late, and the ball squirted past the pitcher and rolled straight at the shortstop, who flipped it to second. The second baseman caught it and fired to first.
"Out!"
"Out!"
The inning died on the double play, and Cha Seo-rin stopped just shy of second base and clicked her tongue in disappointment.
Pop, pop!
"Wow, Na-hyun's glove is looking sharp today!"
"She's our shortstop, she's gotta make those plays~!"
Heartened by the sure-handed infield defense, Han Yu-seul trotted off the mound, and Baek Ha-rin climbed it again.
The bottom of the second got underway with the score still stuck at 0–0. With as many as four hitters due before me, there was every chance my at-bat never came if the inning flowed normally — but I cinched my batting gloves tight anyway. For a guy who wouldn't even be taking the field, that was about all I could do.
Batting fourth was the first baseman, Han Ji-woo.
Crack!
A hard-hit ball screamed toward third. It wasn't squared up, but it carried real speed. The White team's third baseman had been set and waiting, so it looked like a routine grounder, out at first—
Thud.
"Ah!"
The ball clipped the end of her glove and kicked away sideways.
"Safe!"
By the time the third baseman scrambled after it, Han Ji-woo was already standing on first. Unlike Han Yu-seul, who'd gotten help from her defense, Baek Ha-rin had handed the leadoff runner aboard on an error — yet her expression never changed. She simply took a fresh ball and gave the rosin bag a single pat.
Runner on first, nobody out. Up stepped Kim Na-hyun, who'd looked so good in the field the inning before. Against Baek Ha-rin, a bunt wouldn't have been out of place, but Na-hyun squared up to swing away.
"Strike three!"
Four-seam, slider, four-seam again — three pitches, and she was sent back to the bench.
"That's the way, Baek Ha-rin!"
"…"
Not so much as an eyebrow twitched at the cheering from the dugout as she readied her next pitch.
"Ball!"
"Strike!"
"Foul!"
"Ball!"
"Ball!"
"Foul!"
"Ball four!"
The ball kept drifting a hair outside, and the No. 6 hitter, Oh Yu-ra, worked a walk on a full count. But—
Crack!
"Out!"
Baek Ha-rin popped up the No. 7 hitter to the catcher on her third pitch, and just like that, it was two outs with runners on first and second.
"Batting eighth, Kang Tae-oh."
Right in the middle of that tense, grinding rally, the coach called my name. I'd figured my turn would come around the bottom of the third — I never imagined the chance would arrive in the second. And there were runners on first and second. One single, and we could snatch the lead right there.
"No way he hits one again, right?"
"Pfft, not this time."
"You never know, though."
Tuning out the murmurs drifting over from the Blue dugout, I settled into my stance. The instant I cocked my bat, as though she'd been waiting for exactly that, Baek Ha-rin went into her windup and let the first pitch fly.
Four-seam, on the outside corner!
The moment the ball left her fingertips, I read it as an away four-seam fastball and threw the bat out at it—
Pop!
"Strike!"
What rang back wasn't the crisp ring of a barreled ball, but the dead thud of the pitch burying itself in the catcher's mitt.
"156…?"
"Holy crap, is that real?"
"Isn't that her top speed today?"
At the sight of Baek Ha-rin throwing harder at me than she had against the top or heart of the order, a hollow laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
"…Ha."
…Fine. So she really does intend to come at me with everything she's got.