A Man Takes the Field on Opening Day (2)
A home run on the very first pitch I saw. Then, in my second at-bat, a three-run homer even with the count stacked against me.
As the extra runs choked the life out of the opposing starter, a ruckus kept erupting from the third-base dugout.
"Tae-oh oppaaaa!!"
By the time I rounded the bases and touched home, Min Do-hee—who had crossed the plate ahead of me—was bouncing up and down behind home plate, her face lit up with pure delight.
"…Nice hit."
Kim Na-hyun tossed out that flat little compliment while dodging my gaze—still finding it a bit hard to meet my eyes directly, apparently.
Smack!
"You crazy bastard, Kang Tae-oh! Are you even in your right mind?!"
"Ow—quit hitting me already!"
"Look at this punk. Back-to-back home runs and you're not even that happy about it. You've taken your cuts off Ha-rin's pitching, so every other pitcher out there is just garbage to you now, is that it?!"
"I never said that. She was just coming at me with pitches so obvious I couldn't help but swing away."
The first pitch had been a fastball right down the middle. Having gotten burned on that, I figured she'd go to her signature forkball as the putaway pitch in my next at-bat—and that's exactly what I swung at.
It drifted a touch higher than I'd expected, but even if it had dropped clean out of the zone, I'd have swung anyway. It just wouldn't have left the yard—at best I'd have been looking at a double.
"Damn. A guy hits back-to-back jacks in the very first game of the season opener? Seriously, what the hell even are you?"
"I told you before. This is exactly why I don't play men's baseball."
"Honestly, you wasting away in the men's league is a loss for the whole nation."
"Yeah, I'll admit it—benching someone of Tae-oh's caliber purely because he's a man makes no sense whatsoever."
At Cha Seo-rin's words, Kang Ra-hee nodded with her arms crossed, agreeing as if she'd reached the conclusion herself.
"All right, enough chit-chat. Back out there for defense."
"Yes, Coach~!" we chorused.
Oh Yu-ra, the next batter, grounded out to short to end our half of the inning—but the score was already 5–0, and it was only the top of the second.
In baseball, a starting pitcher who goes six or more innings while surrendering three earned runs or fewer is credited with what's called a quality start.
It means that if the starter can hold the line at that level through six innings, the team has the bare minimum of a foundation needed to win. Looked at the other way, it also means that if the offense can provide three or more runs of support over those same six innings, the starter gets to pitch with a completely clear head.
And that, naturally, applied just as much to Baek Ha-rin, standing on the mound at this very moment.
Whoosh!
"Strike three!"
Two fastballs and one slider were all it took to sit the leadoff hitter down on strikes, and Baek Ha-rin dispatched the hitters that followed just as cleanly, one on a fly ball and one on a grounder.
Unlike the opposing starter, who had coughed up four runs in the top of the second alone, she erased the inning without spending even ten pitches.
"Wow, Ha-rin's really dealing today."
"She is. And having just watched the other team's pitcher, the contrast really hits home, huh."
"Spend all day watching nothing but Ha-rin's stuff, and then some other pitcher's ball comes flying in—it'll all just look like total junk, won't it?"
"I never said that! Stop putting words in my mouth, seriously."
…Well, to be fair, compared to Baek Ha-rin's, the opposing starter Im Se-hwa's pitches really were relatively hittable, so I couldn't exactly argue.
From the third inning through the sixth, the game drifted along with neither side managing much of anything. I did manage to slap a single in the fifth, but with every hitter besides me retired in order, our scoring chances went nowhere. Even the balls I squared up best mostly trickled straight at the fielders, and a stifling rhythm settled over the game—though the same held true for the other side.
Thwack!
"Third base!"
Tap!
"Out!"
Tap!
"Out!"
Baek Ha-rin did give up a single in the bottom of the third, but when a sharp grounder came screaming down the third-base line, I took it and turned it into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning scoreless.
In the bottom of the fourth and the fifth she did yield a walk and a single apiece, but she retired everyone else on strikeouts and routine outs, keeping the shutout rolling.
Whump!
"Strike three! You're out!"
And with the last hitter of the bottom of the sixth punched out as well, Baek Ha-rin closed out six scoreless innings of work. Eight strikeouts over those six frames—she had proven beyond any doubt that she was our university's ace.
"Good work out there, Ha-rin."
"I can go back out for the seventh."
"I know. Sit down and rest anyway. We've already built a lead, and I want to get the bullpen girls some work in."
"……Yes, Coach."
At Director Yoon Gaeul's words, Baek Ha-rin didn't bother to dig in her heels; she nodded obediently and started icing her arm down once the sixth was in the books.
As I watched her, our eyes met, and she held my gaze quietly, as if she wanted to say something.
"……"
"What?"
"…What's what?"
"Didn't you have something to say?"
"…Your defense earlier. It was good."
"Hm? Oh—the double play in the third?"
"……"
Nod.
Well, even in my eyes, that one ball had been the turning point of today's game. I turned it into a double play and the inning ended; if I hadn't, we'd have been stuck with one out and runners on the corners instead.
"I'm the third baseman. That much comes with the job."
"Right. I'll be counting on you going forward… Home Run King."
Having tacked on that last bit, Baek Ha-rin turned her gaze away, awkward for no reason at all.
The seventh passed scoreless for both sides, and the eighth came back around.
When I stepped in as the leadoff hitter with nobody out, the pitcher waiting for me was no longer Im Se-hwa but someone entirely new.
Never seen this one before.
Im Se-hwa had been slotted as the starter since yesterday, so I'd known her pitching style and repertoire to some extent and could prepare for it—but the bullpen arms coming in behind her were nothing but unfamiliar faces. If I hadn't batted leadoff, I might at least have had the chance to watch a few pitches from the on-deck circle. I stepped into the box carrying that small regret, but as it turned out, there was no need for any.
"Ball!"
"Ball!"
"Ball!"
"Strike!"
"Ball four!"
Aside from the dead-center fastball on the fourth pitch, every single throw sailed far outside the zone—she never even gave me the chance to settle things with my bat.
I'd vaguely suspected she'd groove one down the middle on the fourth pitch, but with a three-ball count already in my favor, I had no interest in hacking away, so I simply trotted to first and took my base the polite way.
And so I stood on first with nobody out as Oh Yu-ra stepped into the box behind me.
Crack!
"Nice hit, Oh Yu-ra!"
Maybe the new arm's pitches simply suited her better than Im Se-hwa's ever had, because Oh Yu-ra—who hadn't reached base once all day—punched a single through the gap between first and second, and I hustled to third on the play.
Crack!
Then cleanup hitter Kang Ra-hee lifted a sacrifice fly to right field to bring me home.
Do Yeon-seo followed by grounding into a double play to end the inning, but the lead was now 6–0, stretched by one more run.
Our bullpen did get tagged for a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth, but that turned out to be the last run of the day; after that, Chaewon University's final defensive innings unwound without incident.
Pop!
"That's the ballgame!"
Min Do-hee hauled in the final fly ball, a deep one sailing toward center, and Chaewon University walked away with a feel-good win to open the season.
"Great work today, everyone!"
"Good hustle out there!"
"Ahh, I'm beat~."
Once the game ended, everyone wore tired expressions, but with smiles on their faces they filed onto the bus back to campus one by one.
"Change into your team uniforms before we pull out. I'll be handing out snacks before we board, so take one each and eat on the way."
"Yes, Coach~!" came the chorus again.
So this part was exactly like my past life.
Well, Icheon isn't all that far from Seoul, and it sits at an awkward distance for booking lodging—so we'd probably just grab a simple meal on the bus and head home.
I was receiving my uniform from one of the coaches, mulling all this over, when Cha Seo-rin abruptly yanked her jersey off right there in the dugout.
"Ugh, I thought I was gonna die of gross."
"Hey, Cha Seo-rin! Kang Tae-oh's still here!"
"Huh? Oh, he was still here? Sorry, sorry~."
She'd probably decided walking all the way to the changing room was too much of a hassle and planned to just throw on dry clothes in the dugout before hopping on the bus.
And honestly, it wasn't just Cha Seo-rin—the other players barely seemed to register that a man was in their midst. Seniors like Oh Yu-ra and Kwon Ye-rim were calmly peeling off their jerseys and changing right there in the dugout too.
"Wow, even you, Kwon Ye-rim…."
"Oh, come on. Worst case, it's showing a boy my bra—what's the big deal? Right, Tae-oh?"
"Well, I mean…."
"Hey, hey—look, he's embarrassed!"
"What's with that? He's the ultimate manly man when he's launching home runs, but he turns out to be secretly innocent about this stuff?"
The truth was I'd only looked away because the scene was so hard to reconcile with my original world that it left me flustered—but the women took it as shyness and started teasing me in earnest.
"Sorry about that, Tae-oh. They're athletes, so their manners are a little… rough."
"It's fine. It's not like it's a one- or two-day arrangement."
"There's a men's restroom over there—go get changed and come straight to the bus."
"Thank you."
Taking the uniform Captain Kang Ra-hee handed me, I changed and stepped outside to find that most of the team had already dressed and boarded the bus home.
What had happened that morning kept nagging at the back of my mind, and I did briefly consider sitting next to Kim Na-hyun for the ride back—but…
"Oh, Oppa! Here, here!"
"…Right. Hey, Do-hee."
Do-hee was slapping the seat beside her like she'd reserved it in advance, and I couldn't quite bring myself to walk past that beaming face—so just like on the way there, I sat down next to her, and we headed back to Chaewon University.
…Not that it mattered. Kim Na-hyun was already seated next to Oh Yu-ra anyway. The chance was gone before it ever existed.