Championship Race (2)
Putting yesterday's fiery victory behind me, I racked my brains in the manager's office. I had to plan today's starting lineup.
After much deliberation, I decided to go with Choi Tae-won as the starter again. He had more upside than Song Young-shin or Ha Min-young.
To shore up the shaky starter, I needed to pick the lineup with care. Starting in September, the expanded roster allowed us to register up to 32 players in the first team instead of 27, and we could use up to 30 in games instead of 25—an increase of five each. Since we were short on starters, we leaned heavy on pitchers for the 4th and 5th spots.
Our first-team roster crammed in 17 pitchers: Pier Band, Van Hecken, Lee Ji-seung, Choi Tae-won, Han Hyun-ho, Ha Min-young, Song Young-shin, Jo Sang-hoon, Kim Hyun-se, Kim Woo-dae, Son Seung-hyuk, Lee Yang-hoon, Kim Min-cheol, Min Jeong-gil, Kim Hyeong-taek, Moon Hyun-seong, and Lee Min-sang.
The position players were trickier since our pool was so deep—we struggled not to overload it. We settled on 15: Kim Kang-jun, Kang Hyun-jun, Kim Seong-ha, Park Byung-hyun, Snyder, Seo Geon-cheol, Yoo Jun-han, Lee Geun-taek, Park Won-dong, Yoon Min-seok, Kim Seong-min, Go Jong-wook, Im Byung-yoon, Kim Hyeon-jae, and Kim Su-ji.
Seventeen pitchers and fifteen hitters—we were stacking the deck on the mound. As long as the starters held up, great; if they faltered, we'd patch it with quick hooks. Even our ace trio of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd starters couldn't win every time. But if the 4th and 5th collapsed, we could stumble right at the championship door.
In late innings lately, even Pier Band and Van Hecken had started tiring, giving up hits more often. We tried to let starters go deep in their rotations, but stamina dips in the second half were inevitable. At least they ate innings even when surrendering runs? That was our silver lining.
After announcing our lineup, I got the Eagles' in return. No big changes: Choi Haeng-jin was out, Jeong Seok-hyeon was in. Their starter? Talbot.
He was their best arm by far, and facing him now—when our starter was shaky—had me worried. Plus, this two-game set meant two-hour bus rides each way. Playing in Daejeon, no hotel; just bus it. For the top team, it felt a bit stingy. But what was done was done. We had to make the best of it.
On the bus to Daejeon, the players rested quietly. Only occasional snores broke the silence. Better they recharge fully, so I left them be and fired up my laptop to study game data.
Baseball was getting scientific these days—player stats analyzed like in MLB with sabermetrics and all. It wasn't fully adopted in Korea yet, just bits here and there, so I figured I should learn. With metrics on offense, defense, pitching... blending them with my Status Windows could make me even more effective. Baseball only got tougher the more you studied it.