First Taegeuk Mark (4)
CRAAACK—!
A cleanly struck ball! It drops in front of the center fielder. Lee Hajun records his third hit of the day!
As expected.
He stepped onto first base and drew a T with his hand.
The Philippine pitchers’ stuff was nowhere near threatening. If it had been a slow fastball with little deception, he might have been slightly thrown off—those weren’t the kind of pitches he’d grown used to seeing in domestic baseball. But thankfully they had chosen to attack him mainly with breaking balls, so there were no real variables to worry about.
“Good work.”
“Thank you.”
Lee Hajun’s day ends here.
A perfect performance both at the plate and in the field.
With the team already leading 11–1, Hajun was replaced by a pinch runner.
By rule, a cold game could be called after the fifth inning with a fifteen-run lead or after the seventh with a ten-run lead. Manager Park Seongrae decided against chasing a fifteen-run margin and instead aimed for a stable ten-run cold victory in the seventh.
Nothing much to it, really.
Hajun sat on the bench and drank some fluid. In any sport, the first game of an international tournament tended to produce plenty of surprises. Against a relatively weak Philippines side, however, the Korean national baseball team had pulled far ahead early and already locked up the win.
“Wipe that look off your face, kid.”
“Ah! Yes, sorry.”
At the pitching coach’s words, Tae Minho of the Daegu Warriors—who had thrown four innings and allowed one run—snapped back to attention. If someone really wanted to nitpick Korea’s performance today, the only moment worth pointing to was the first-inning home run Tae Minho had given up to the Philippines’ number-three hitter, Kun. Having briefly drawn attention as the new era’s national-team ace, Tae Minho still couldn’t forget that moment; failing to throw a scoreless outing today stung badly. Others might say he had pitched well enough, but he himself felt he had failed to shake off the disappointment of not being chosen for tomorrow’s Taiwan game and prove himself as a candidate for the final.
“How the hell is Japan still this hot in September?”
“Lately Korea’s been pretty much the same.”
“I just want to hit the showers already.”
Most of the players, of course, had simply grown bored with the easy blowout and lost interest in the game in front of them.
“Hajun, I’m not going in today, right? I’m the win-guarantee card for tomorrow.”
“You’ve thrown back-to-back plenty of times. Shouldn’t matter.”
“International games are different.”
A few players were already thinking about tomorrow. The second group-stage game against Taiwan in Group B. With Japan sitting in Group A, it was effectively the only—and most important—match of the group stage.
When Japan had been chosen as host, plenty of rumors had circulated that they would field professional players. But there had been no surprises. Just like previous tournaments, Japan’s national team was made up of industrial-league players. They were proper company-team athletes, not weekend amateurs, yet for players selected from the Korean professional ranks to call them a true threat would have been a stretch of conscience. That made Taiwan the Korean national team’s biggest obstacle this tournament.
Taiwan, huh.
The Korean baseball he had known as a kid had beaten Japan’s absolute best and held its own against powerhouses from the United States and Latin America. Now even early exits from elite tournaments no longer automatically counted as disasters, and here they were trembling at the thought of facing Taiwan. Hajun found it absurd, but past results had to be accepted.
“We have to win tomorrow no matter what.”
“Huh?”
Hajun’s eyes widened as he spoke. This was his first full professional season—only half a season, really—and of course the first time he had ever worn a national-team uniform. It might have looked a little presumptuous for him to speak up, but wearing a jersey with the Taegeuk mark on it and watching the Asian Games gold-medal streak end in his generation was simply unthinkable. This wasn’t the Olympics or the WBC, and their old rivals Japan weren’t even sending pros. At this level of competition, they had to stand on the top of the podium.
“Whoa, with stuff like that he’d even play in Korea.”
“A lefty starter sitting 154 km/h—whether it ‘plays’ isn’t the question.”
“He’s going to the majors in a few years. Why would he come to Korea?”
In the analysis room, the Korean national team players were naturally offering their own impressions while breaking down tomorrow’s Taiwan starter, Liu Fei. The one clear consensus was that expecting a big multi-run outburst against this pitcher would be difficult.
Impressive.
Hajun was fairly taken aback himself. A left-handed starter who touched 153–154 km/h. Korea had a few of those. But pitchers who combined that kind of stable command with polished secondary pitches were extremely rare. You would have to go back to the younger days of the legendary veterans still grinding it out on pure grit. Even more surprising was that he was born in 2004. He still had room to grow and would likely remain a cornerstone of the Taiwan national team for the next decade.
“Still, we’ve got a lot of right-handed hitters, don’t we?”
“He doesn’t care about left or right. His changeup against righties is filthy, so it might actually be tougher.”
“Slider against lefties is nasty too.”
“The fastball bothers me the most. The stuff looks better than the velocity.”
“·····”
Hitters who had faced him in the last WBC and Premier12 shared their thoughts, but they never really arrived at a meaningful conclusion. A few players half-jokingly wanted to say it didn’t look like much, yet they stayed quiet for fear of seeming to dismiss their seniors.
No real answer, huh?
To Hajun, the pitcher simply didn’t seem to have an obvious weakness. And precisely because of that, his own thinking could become simpler. If he was confident in his own ability and had already analyzed the opponent thoroughly enough, the only thing left was to go out and face him.
“Still, a few of their bullpen arms are out with injuries, so their late-game depth won’t be that strong. Don’t go hunting for the big fly—just keep grinding.”
Kim Jongpil spoke. It wasn’t the ideal plan, but it ranked as a solid middle option. The fact that they were even discussing second-best strategies with the entire national-team lineup gathered said everything about how dominant Liu Fei’s performance had been last March.
How’s this going to go?
Sitting quietly among the seniors, Hajun felt both anticipation and pressure for tomorrow’s game at the same time.
“At least in the Asian Games we’ve always beaten them. Forget what happened last March and let’s win again today. Republic of Korea!”
“Fighting!”
Still under the sweltering heat at Toyohashi Baseball Stadium, the Korean national team’s starting lineup high-fived and headed to their positions for the day.
Our players are as passionate as you’d expect from a young roster.
I’m sure many Korean baseball fans have been both looking forward to and worrying about today’s game. Here’s hoping they deliver a beautiful win.
Korean professional baseball had been enjoying unprecedented popularity for several years. At the same time, many people in the baseball world fretted that continued international struggles might damage that heat, and the reporters on site watched the game with anxious eyes.
Taiwan’s left-hander Liu Fei will take the mound as their starter today.
He showed truly terrifying stuff in the last WBC, but our lineup is quite different this time, so we believe things will go differently.
And for the Republic of Korea, Seoul Grizzlies ace Oh Yeongju takes the ball.
Many are saying he has now risen to the top tier of the league. Viewers at home can look forward to a strong outing.
Gulp.
Standing at shortstop for the top of the first, Hajun swallowed dryly.
Now this finally feels like a real international game.
The atmosphere was on a completely different level from yesterday. A small ballpark. After playing every day in stadiums that were full or nearly full, seeing a crowd that barely filled half the seats still made him nervous and caused him to overthink every movement. No matter how hard he tried to stay confident, it was hard to deny that they had just run into the biggest obstacle on the road to gold. Losing today wouldn’t eliminate them, but he understood the importance of seizing the early momentum.
Here we go—Oh Yeongju!
As Korea’s starter Oh Yeongju delivered the first pitch, the showdown between the two biggest title favorites began.
WHAP—!
“Strike three!”
He chases the high pitch—strikeout!
Oh, that was beautiful, Oh Yeongju!
Top of the first. When the leadoff man walked and Kim Jongbeom failed to handle the second hitter’s bunt, putting runners on first and second with nobody out, plenty of Korean fans watching at home had trembled with anxiety. But after a shallow outfield fly with one out and runners on second and third, followed by a swinging strikeout, Korea was able to come to bat in the bottom of the first with the classic “crisis into opportunity” narrative still intact.
Crack! Crack!
Hajun loosened his joints and stepped into the box.
“·····”
He finished his distinctive preparatory motion of lining up left-hander Liu Fei with the bat.
Now the reliable leadoff man not just for the Hawks but for the entire Republic of Korea—Lee Hajun!
He showed scorching bat speed yesterday. Can he live up to expectations again today?
Hajun calmly waited for the first pitch.
“Huh?”
He had already watched the delivery on video many times. And yet—
WHAP—!
“Strike!”
“Ah·····”
Lee Hajun, who boasted the lowest swing-and-miss rate in the league, completely whiffed on the first-pitch fastball.
153 km/h! Liu Fei is as fast as advertised.
Even more unique than I thought.
It was the kind of deception that hid the ball until the very end, the sort you usually saw from Japanese professional pitchers. In a lefty-versus-lefty matchup, the combination of a hard fastball and that kind of deception was close to a disaster.
WHAP—!
“Ball!”
WHAP—!
“Strike!”
Three straight fastballs. Hajun calmly took the ball.
CRAAACK—!
“Foul!”
“Mm·····”
Foul ball, Lee Hajun!
The timing hadn’t been bad.
Just a little more.
Hajun quickly pulled Liu Fei into his own timing, and—
WHAP—!
“Ball!”
A lefty’s slider that was especially effective against left-handed hitters. Hajun’s bat never moved. He could feel his concentration climbing toward its peak.
Liu Fei delivered. Hajun calmly closed in on his prey.
Wait—?
But the pitcher’s advantage in the first duel had to be measured all the way to the end. It came in looking like a fastball, then lost speed and dropped. On the outside changeup, Hajun threw every ounce of strength into relaxing his body.
CRAAACK—!
The bat comes through—ground ball!
Damn!
On a half-hearted swing the ball stayed fair. This duel was a loss. All he could do was sprint full speed to first.
Shortstop has it—throw to first!
Hajun ran with a desperation that surpassed even his pinch-running days.
“Safe!”
Safe at first! Lee Hajun reaches base.
That speed is still incredible!
“Hoo·····”
Hajun exhaled as if he had just aged ten years. The shortstop had charged in, but the ball had been just awkward enough. Liu Fei pressed his lips together in frustration after allowing the infield single.
“·····”
In the end he had reached base. Now a baserunner, Hajun shook off every last bit of regret and relief from the previous at-bat and finished preparing to threaten the opposing battery.