Opening Day Starter
Kang Hajin steps onto the mound. Last season’s MVP, Golden Glove winner among pitchers, and the league leader in both ERA and strikeouts—Kang Hajin takes the ball as the Savers’ Opening Day starter today.
He barely showed himself during the exhibition games, so I went and asked Manager Park Donghoon about it. I was worried something might be wrong.
Oh? And what did he say?
He said there was no reason to force him out there. Apparently his body was already fully dialed in by camp. Haha.
A few events took place before the Opening Day game began. And once again, without fail, the ceremonial first pitch made its return.
“Aren’t they milking this way too hard?”
That girl-group member was out again. The one whose entire repertoire was hopping around. They had built her image as the Goddess of Victory, and now it felt like they summoned her for every important occasion.
“Her name was Jo… Jo…”
Today’s ceremonial first pitch will be thrown by a member of XXXX—the Savers’ Goddess of Victory, Jo Hye-na!
The stadium announcer’s perfectly timed introduction finally let me learn her name. Still, she had thrown so many first pitches that she seemed to be improving with each appearance. Today she even came out dressed head to toe like a player, complete with a cap.
“Please just do it quietly and get off…”
I could tolerate the hopping, but I prayed she wouldn’t tear up the mound as I watched her throw.
True to form, she bounced boldly onto the mound, planted her foot on the rubber, and took a sign from Ko Mandeok. Watching from behind…
“That crazy bastard actually…”
Ko Mandeok was flashing her a knuckleball sign. Jo Hye-na saw it and nodded with complete confidence. I was pretty sure he had pulled the same stunt last time.
Completely unaware, Jo Hye-na set her stance and went into her windup.
“Huh?”
That delivery form…
“Oh?”
It looked a lot like mine…
Pop.
“Wooooaaaaah!!!!”
The ball landed cleanly in the catcher’s mitt. It wasn’t even one of those soft arcing ceremonial tosses.
“That had to be at least seventy kilometers an hour…?”
She had thrown it so well I was a little surprised. Ko Mandeok came up, handed her the ball, and she was supposed to wave and head off…
“Um, e-excuse me… h-how was it?”
Why was she suddenly asking me?
“Ah! You threw it really well. Looks like you practiced a lot.”
I was caught off guard but answered with something nice, and—
“R-really? Thank you! Thank you so much!”
She seemed far happier than I expected. Having heard exactly what she wanted to hear, she waved cheerfully toward the stands and left the mound in high spirits.
“…Come to think of it, she didn’t hop around this time.”
The mound was still clean.
“Play ball.”
The Dolphins’ leadoff hitter stepped into the box. He looked very young. He was a twenty-two-year-old kid who had shoved aside Oh Ju-yeong—the team’s immovable leadoff man through last season—and claimed the spot for himself.
Until last year the Dolphins’ outfield had been locked down by three players. The corners belonged to the foreign import Ferza and one of the best pure power hitters in the country, Park Kang-su. That left only center field… and that spot had been held by the veteran Oh Ju-yeong. Everyone else had been lucky just to appear as late-inning defensive replacements.
Then twenty-two-year-old Min Ji-wook had shoved the thirty-four-year-old Oh Ju-yeong right out of the job.
“Look at that kid’s eyes.”
He finished his preparation and glared at me while waiting for the pitch. The look was anything but ordinary.
“Heh. Anyone watching would think I was his mortal enemy.”
The way Min Ji-wook stared daggers at me—like he had just run into a debtor who skipped town—somehow made me snicker. Did he see that? His eyes got even more murderous.
“Playtime’s over~”
Ko Mandeok and I had already decided what the first pitch would be. In fact, we had the entire approach for the first batter mapped out.
Whap!
“Stri~ke!”
Kang Hajin’s first pitch! A fastball on the outer edge for a called strike.
One hundred sixty-three kilometers an hour. Haha. Opening the season with a hundred sixty-three… Just like Manager Park Donghoon said, his body is fully ready.
Min Ji-wook’s expression said he was a little shocked. Still… he really was young, wasn’t he? Standing there with his mouth hanging open like that was not a good look.
Tick.
“Foul.”
Another four-seamer on the outer half caught the end of the bat and went foul. It had drifted a touch more inside than I wanted… but the fact that he got wood on it on only the second pitch told me he hadn’t earned the Opening Day leadoff spot for nothing. The kid had some feel.
But by now that batter was almost certainly sitting on the fastball. I had shown him two in a row; there was no way he was timing anything else. If another heater came, he would be helpless. And if he was sitting heater, could he still handle something off-speed?
Whap.
“Stri~ke! Out!”
Not a chance.
That’s a curveball. Kang Hajin freezes him with a hundred-thirty-six-kilometer curve for the first strikeout of the season.
Show a young hitter two consecutive fastballs over a hundred sixty, then drop that curve on him—how is he supposed to adjust? That was simply too tough a battle for the still-green Min Ji-wook.
After retiring leadoff man Min Ji-wook on three pitches, I got the next batter, Kang Ho-yeong, to bounce into a groundout to second on just two pitches. Now stepping in was Park Kang-su.
Park Kang-su—the veteran who, together with Ferza, had somehow dragged the completely collapsed Dolphins lineup through last season—walked into the box. The home run he had hit off me last year was still vivid in my mind. He had sat on the changeup and crushed it. I had gotten him out plenty of times since and never given up another homer, yet that one swing still lived rent-free in my head. Maybe because he had beaten me so cleanly?
I nodded at Ko Mandeok’s sign and went right into the delivery. The ball floated a touch low, then, as it neared the plate, its path suddenly broke hard downward. It bounced in the dirt right in front of home; Ko Mandeok blocked it with his body and immediately pointed toward the third-base umpire, asking whether Park Kang-su’s check swing had gone around. From my angle it looked like it might have, so I held a little hope…
Unfortunately the third-base ump’s arms stayed open.
“Tch. Close.”
That first-pitch splitter had been good. Why check-swing and stop on it?
One ball. Second pitch.
“Stri~ke!”
A low four-seamer on the outer edge evened the count. Then the third pitch. For the first time today I shook off Ko Mandeok’s sign.
A changeup…? The memory of getting crushed on one was still too fresh in my head…
Ko Mandeok paused for a second at the rejection, then put down another sign. That one I nodded at.
“Foul.”
Park Kang-su cut a two-seamer running away from him. It looked like he had been a hair late—probably not the pitch he expected—yet he still managed to get the bat on it. That was exactly why he hit .300-something with thirty-plus homers every year.
“Ball.”
The next two-seamer came in a little low. He could easily have swung, but even in a hitter’s count he never flinched and took it cleanly.
“I didn’t think he was the type with that kind of plate discipline…”
He was the kind of guy who could square up anything that came near the zone, not the kind who played eye-ball. Watching him take that pitch so cleanly was unsettling.
Two-and-two. I locked onto Ko Mandeok’s fingers for the fifth pitch. And again the same sign appeared.
“Ha… seriously.”
This time, the moment he put it down, he tapped his own chest as if to say, Trust me and throw it.
Whap.
Kang Hajin! A filthy changeup on the outer edge freezes Park Kang-su for a swinging strikeout!
Park Kang-su completely missed the timing. He probably never expected a changeup. He tried to get the bat on it somehow, but the depth on that changeup was just too good.
Top of the first. Kang Hajin shuts them down on ten pitches and hands the mound over. Now Martinez takes the ball.
This guy has ten major-league wins as a starter under his belt. He throws a max hundred-fifty-five fastball along with a slider, sinker, and curve—and that curve is especially sharp.
Martinez faced our leadoff man Jo Chang-jun, threw three straight curves, then finished him with a fastball for a strikeout. Jo Chang-jun came back into the dugout shaking his head.
“Ugh, fuck. What the hell was that pitch? How am I supposed to hit something that suddenly pops in from behind my back…”
“Looked like something between three-quarters and sidearm. Maybe that’s why?”
“This feels a lot like the first time I saw Hajin’s slider.”
“That bad?”
“Well, it’s slower, sure. Slower, but… ah, I don’t know. I think I’ll need to see it a few more times before I can hit it…”
Crack.
“Waaaaah~”
“That guy just hit it, though?”
“….”
While Jo Chang-jun was still grumbling and making excuses, Go Young-su—who had only joined our team two days earlier—turned one of Martinez’s pitches into a base hit.
“Th-that’s a lefty! And that wasn’t even a curve just now!”
He hurriedly raised his voice to protest, but everyone just snickered. Listening to Jo Chang-jun’s excuse-laced complaints, I focused on the next batter, Park Jeonghun.
Right-handed Park Jeonghun. The moment a righty stepped in, Martinez went right back to the curve.
“Stri~ke!”
“Ball.”
“Foul.”
“Foul.”
“Ball.”
“Foul.”
Six pitches: three curves and three fastballs. All three curves had been fouled off. The last foul in particular had been a pretty solid piece of contact—just a little early on the timing. Thinking he might finally have the curve timed up, I waited for the seventh pitch with real anticipation.
“Stri~ke! Out!”
“Whoa… what the hell was that?”
“Is that a slider or a curve?”
“No, the break just got bigger? Velocity barely changed?”
A curve that started high and inside on the right-handed batter and then broke diagonally all the way down and away—Park Jeonghun never even got the bat off his shoulder and went down looking. If it looked that nasty from the distant dugout, it must have been even more ridiculous for Park Jeonghun standing in the box.
“You said he was Triple-A? That he bounced between the majors and minors?”
“…Fuck, he throws shit like that and still couldn’t stick in the majors?”
“Well, he didn’t exactly fail to stick. Whenever a spot opened they called him up first.”
“That’s the definition of not sticking. Means he wasn’t good enough to be a permanent piece.”
The dugout started buzzing. Everyone wore the same uneasy expression. In the middle of it—
Crack.
“Out.”
Our captain, the next batter, flied out to left, and the bottom of the first ended without a run.