The Defense Fairy
Bottom line first: I ended up taking the car.
I hadn't planned on it at all. The season was almost over, and after that I was headed to the States—what use would I have for a car? Besides, the manager who ferried me to and from the ballpark already lived under the same roof.
The reason I took it anyway came down to one line from Ho-min.
"Just give it to your dad."
"…Huh?"
"He's been driving that old thing forever, hasn't he? Looks like it's about time for a change."
"…Yeah, it is."
"What an unfilial son."
"……"
I had nothing to say to that. Honestly, it hadn't even crossed my mind. I'd been stuck on a single thought—Why bother with a car? What a hassle—and that was it.
So I brought it home. And Dad… well, he loved it. He always said he didn't need money, yet the car made him light up. I still don't fully get it.
The day after the All-Star Game, a random article popped up online.
A sudden wet blanket thrown over our hot streak. But once I actually read the piece, every word of it checked out.
Our lineup barely ever changes. Nine hitters start each game, and aside from the occasional shuffle in the order, those nine almost never rotate. Not because every one of them is a superstar—there simply isn't anyone better waiting in the wings.
The soft spots in our batting order are shortstop and center field. Choi Min-gi is locked in at short, and Na Seung-won holds center like a fortress. Both of them hover around the low-to-mid .200s… and the reason they still start every day is the same one I already mentioned.
There is no one better.
Our outfield backups are Lee Won-jeong—who got bumped when Go Yeong-su arrived—and Ju Yang-gyu. Lee Won-jeong can't handle center. He'll do it if you force him, but he isn't fast and his range is average at best. Not enough for center field. Ju Yang-gyu's defense out there is solid enough, but his bat is the problem. He mostly comes in as a defensive replacement or pinch runner, so he doesn't get many at-bats—still, barely scraping .200 is rough.
At least the outfield can be patched somehow. Shortstop is a different story.
There is no one. Literally no one.
If shortstop ever opens up, the smartest move is to slide Park Jeonghun over from third. And third? Kim Tae-seong would have been a perfect answer, but we traded him to bring in Go Yeong-su. So the captain would have to go back to the hot corner. First base? Stick Jeong Jong-seong or Shane out there and it would at least look like a position.
You can see where this is going. The infield would have to play musical chairs. We just don't have the depth.
Sure, there's an infield option among the pinch-hitters. Of course there is. Hong Jong-min, twenty-seven, a utility guy who can pinch-hit and fill in on defense. But… he's just a little disappointing. He can play every infield spot, and yet everything about him feels a half-step short—glove and bat both.
Ho-min's scouting report on him was blunt.
"Defense-wise he's a first baseman. Bat-wise he struggles even as a shortstop."
That was the verdict.
Why is our infield bench so thin? Part of it is the pre-Hajin rebuild that flushed out a lot of experienced guys. Trading Yoon Hyo-jung and Kim Tae-seong didn't help either. With the roster in this shape, Manager Park never really had a choice. He takes heat for running the same names out there every night, but what else is he supposed to do?
So that article wasn't pure nonsense. I read it, nodded along, and figured that was that. Nothing was on fire yet—no point fretting over one piece of clickbait.
And then it happened.
Jo Chang-jun. Lower Back Pain. Optioned to the Minors.
Savers' Jo Chang-jun. Out at Least Two Weeks.
A Crack Appears in the Surging Savers.
Our locked-in leadoff man and second baseman, Jo Chang-jun, went to the hospital on the last day of the All-Star break. Lower back pain. The tests said he needed about two weeks.
A crisis right on the doorstep of the second half.
"Want me to take second?"
"Are you insane? You've completely lost it."
Ho-min hit me with the insult instantly. I'd been joking, but the way he snapped back still stung a little.
"You forget I came up as a shortstop?"
"How far back are you digging? That was more than ten years ago."
"Fundamentals don't just disappear."
"Is that why you can't even handle left field and only DH?"
"……"
I tried to dig in a little longer, but it was never a fight I could win. He wiped the floor with me.
"Captain Seo's going to have a rough time."
"You think so? Jong-min hyung at second is…"
"You serious?"
"It's not that bad. He's not great, but he can hold it down for a few games."
"Bullshit. That guy's mental game is a disaster. Stick him in the starting lineup and he'll shake so hard he'll lay eggs."
Come on. No way. I'd never actually seen Hong Jong-min start a game, but it couldn't be that bad… right?
I should have trusted Ho-min more.
Ho-min's prediction was dead-on.
Bottom of the first against the Hawks on the road. A ball came at Hong Jong-min a little hot, to his right. It was quick, but still a play he should have made.
Instead—
"Oh! Off the glove and rolling into short left-center! Center fielder and left fielder both chase, but the batter-runner is safe at second!"
"That was a tough one to watch. Late read on the ball. He needed to get over and set his feet earlier. When you're late and just stab with the glove, that's what happens."
Painful. The kid had been working hard, too. Watching him stand there with his head down, pouring sweat, twisted something in my chest.
But sympathy was one thing. The team was already in trouble in the first inning.
One out, runner on second, and up came the three-hole hitter, Chae Jin-hak.
Crack!
Chae Jin-hak squared up Hwang Chan-young's heater. A line drive screaming between second and short.
And then—
"Oh! Oh! Hong Jong-min!! Hong Jong-min has it! What a diving catch! He completely laid out and snared that ball! And he tags second for the double play! He just erased his own mistake!"
Lately it felt like Superman was showing up every other night. I'd written that ball off as a sure hit, and he tracked it down, launched himself, and came up with it. How he even anticipated the path was beyond me.
"Maybe that'll give him some confidence…?"
Savers Collapse on Errors.
Hong Jong-min: Three Errors in First Start, Yanked from the Game.
After that insane play in the first, it looked like Hong Jong-min might settle in. Then in the bottom of the fifth he booted two in a row and got pulled.
He could rob the hard ones… so why did the slow grounders keep eating him alive?
In the end Park Jeonghun shifted to short, Choi Min-gi moved to second, and the captain went to third. Shane came in from right field to first, Ju Yang-gyu replaced Hong Jong-min in left, and Go Yeong-su took right. A full defensive carousel. We tried to claw back, but the game was already gone.
With my start the next day, that wholesale defensive shuffle had me on edge. Of all places for the problem to hit—the middle of the diamond.
Choi Min-gi and Park Jeonghun as a keystone combo didn't commit any glaring mistakes, but they still looked a little out of sync. Talent was one thing; their chemistry just wasn't there yet. When Jo Chang-jun and Park Jeonghun had been the double-play pair it had been smooth. Choi Min-gi simply didn't have Jo's savvy yet.
The next day, the lineup card broke every expectation.
1. Go Yeong-su (RF)
2. Lee Won-jeong (LF)
3. Park Jeonghun (SS)
4. Seo Gyeongmin (1B)
5. Shane (3B)
6. Kang Hajin (SP)
7. Ko Mandeok (C)
8. Choi Min-gi (2B)
9. Na Seung-won (CF)
"……What the hell is this?"
Lee Won-jeong starting for the first time in a while? Fine. Nothing weird there. But why was 3B written next to the name of that foreigner—over 190 centimeters of pure muscle wrapped around a frame that looked carved out of stone?
"Whoa… is this what they call a masterstroke?"
"What even is this?"
Ko Mandeok looked just as baffled—though could anyone be more baffled than me? A denser, more muscular giant was about to play third base behind me.
"He looked solid at first yesterday, but…"
"First and third are the same position now?"
I was still grumbling when I heard something that stopped me cold.
"…Shane used to play third?"
"Apparently he did a fair amount of it in the minors."
"Hold on—Shane's a lefty!"
"What are you talking about? He throws right-handed on defense."
"……"
"You've been playing with the guy this long and you still didn't know? How does that even make sense?"
Had he? My memory scrambled. So he was a righty-throwing lefty hitter. How had I never noticed?
"He came in early today and took grounders. Looked good, they said."
"R-really?"
"Kid's flexible and quick for his size. Arm's strong, too."
Thinking back, Shane had surprised me the first time I saw him. All that muscle, and somehow he was absurdly flexible and fast. Ko Mandeok and I had even wondered out loud why a guy like that wasn't playing football instead of baseball.
"You think the skipper put that lineup up for no reason? Don't worry about it."
The card was already set. I stopped fretting and started getting ready for my start.
A little later—
Thwack.
"Nice!"
"Shane, good!"
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
I happened to catch the pregame defensive work. Shane was flying around third base. That huge frame moved in quick, sharp cuts, snatching balls like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was speechless.
"That monster… is he better there than in right field?"
Ko Mandeok, watching beside me, sounded just as stunned.
"No kidding. Turns out our foreign hitter was an infielder all along."
I felt exactly the same. I never saw that coming. Of course, this was only practice—games speed could be different—but still.
"Having that beast out there doesn't make me nervous at all."
Yeah. Suddenly I couldn't wait for the game to start.