VS the Dragons
"A little late today?"
I arrived at the stadium a bit later than usual and ran into Seo Gyeongmin. When I greeted him, he tilted his head and asked.
He wasn't scolding me for being late. He was just curious why the guy who always showed up early was running behind today.
"Ah. Sorry. I just didn't feel like running into anyone."
I apologized and flicked a glance toward the home dugout. Seo Gyeongmin's eyes followed mine, skimmed the Dragons' dugout, then came back.
Our captain had clearly seen the articles about me, so he understood what I meant right away.
"Figured as much… Still, you should at least say hello, right? Want me to go with you?"
People usually called him rough-looking, but if you watched him long enough you saw the simple, almost endearing side of him too. Right now his expression had gone strangely soft.
What was that look? Worry? No—pity felt closer.
"I'm not going over to greet them."
"Huh? Uh… Hajin… Look, the baseball world in this country is small, so…"
"I was the outcast."
"Uh… uh? What?"
"The outcast. After I got on the manager's bad side, nobody wanted anything to do with me. So yeah—I was the outcast."
"……"
Oh. There it was. Seo Gyeongmin's face twisted into something ugly.
"What about Hojung?"
He seemed to think Choe Hojung, the Dragons' captain, was the same kind of guy he was.
"Nothing special. He gets along great with the manager."
"Those sons of bitches…… Fine. Don't go."
"Yes, sir."
That was a relief. He'd been easier to convince than I expected. Even if I'd refused, if Seo Gyeongmin had dragged me over I would've had no choice but to go.
He looked angrier than I was.
"Come on. We need to get ready."
"Yes. We do."
"Yeah. You… did well. You worked hard."
He clapped my shoulder once, said those few words, and headed in ahead of me. Something stung at the tip of my nose.
I spun around fast, trying to get a grip before the tears could actually start.
"Ha… that hit harder than I expected."
I never thought a simple "you worked hard" could land that deep.
This is what a team is supposed to feel like.
Back in high school I'd still been all rah-rah, giving it everything I had. The coach never let anyone overdo it, so I just put in my assigned work and actually enjoyed the game.
That lifestyle had continued even after I first got called up to the first team…
After the manager changed, I started putting a thirty-pitch limit on myself just to survive, doing my best to stay positive and stick to my own patterns. But the truth was, my insides had rotted more times than I could count.
At least I'd had Taeseong hyung. Without him I don't know what kind of life I would have lived.
One day Taeseong hyung had a cold and took the day off. That day I got pushed further and further back until practice ended without me throwing a single ball. I just stood there staring blankly the whole time.
I locked myself in the bathroom and cried as quietly as I could for a long while.
Then I still had to pitch that night's game. I was so pissed I just threw however I wanted and gave up who knows how many runs. I took every curse in the book, came home, and cried all over again in front of Ho-min…
The next day Taeseong hyung found out. From then on, no matter how sick he was, he never took a day off. Whatever else was going on, he always caught my throws first and only then went back inside.
After living through that kind of garbage, coming here felt like a completely different world.
A manager who believed in me. Coaches who looked after me. Teammates who checked on me and worried about me.
"Hajin~ You won't have to come out today~ Just rest easy. We'll beat the crap out of them for you. Heh heh."
Yun Hyojung thumped me on the back as he walked past.
"That old bastard must be going senile… You're not letting it get to you, right?"
Kim Taeseong got angry right alongside me.
Other players drifted over one by one and threw in their own words of support. By the time I'd finished dealing with all of them, I realized I'd completely forgotten about Manager Ko Jangsu and was just standing there smiling.
Our starter today was Dennis Santos, the team's number-two starter and a classic sinkerballer.
With a sinkerballer, infield defense is everything—and honestly, our infield defense… wasn't exactly elite.
On top of that, Dennis himself was wildly inconsistent. Some days he painted the corners like a magician; other days he threw ten straight balls and looked completely lost.
There had been trade talk about him since the start of the season, yet somehow he'd survived all the way to the end.
People said he was a good guy—positive, worked hard. I couldn't really talk to him, so we just exchanged simple greetings, but the guys who'd been with him from the beginning seemed more comfortable with Dennis than with our actual ace, Michael Len.
Control, though… some things just don't improve no matter how hard you try.
"There's a rumor they kept him just so the infielders could get practice."
Ko Mandeok glanced around like he was sharing state secrets and whispered it.
"What kind of…"
I looked at him, thinking it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard, but the guy looked completely serious.
He actually believed it?
"Think about it. Season's almost over and he's only got eight wins. Losses are way past ten. ERA was sitting in the fives, finally dropped to the mid-fours. Why keep a pitcher like that all the way to the end?"
"Couldn't find a new foreigner?"
"Then just release him and call up a starter from the second team to develop."
"……Because he's a nice guy?"
Ko Mandeok let out a long, pitying sigh and shook his head.
That somehow made me feel worse.
"That's the only reason that makes sense. No matter how many ground balls you hit in practice, it's nothing like live games, right?"
"Even so…"
I still thought it was ridiculous. And then—
"Out!"
"Out!"
"Out!"
Watching the bottom of the first, I started thinking maybe Ko Mandeok wasn't entirely full of it.
Four batters faced, including one hit, and every single ball was a grounder rolling through the infield. The locations were so awkward that the shortstop and third baseman had already dirtied their uniforms diving for them.
They even seemed more locked in than usual…
"He's killing the ball today. Looks like we hit the jackpot. We're winning this one."
Jo Sangjun, whose seat next to me had basically become permanent, watched Dennis come off the mound after the inning and said it with total certainty.
Even I could see it—he was painting the corners sharp. Condition looked excellent.
Maybe Yun Hyojung was right and I wouldn't have to pitch today…
I thought that for about half a second. Then reality caught up.
The Dragons' starter, Na Honggi, was also having a different kind of day, holding us to one run through five innings.
If it had just been Na Honggi being on and our hitters not knowing what to do with him, that would've been one thing…
"He's throwing so badly the kids don't know how to react. Unbelievable."
His control was so all over the place that the hitters couldn't settle in.
Na Honggi lived off pure velocity, and today he was just flinging that fastball wherever. You couldn't swing, you couldn't wait—it was an ironic mess.
And every so often a pitch came screaming inside as a warning.
Whether he meant it or just had zero command, it was a miracle nobody had been hit yet. The ball kept flying at bodies like it was on a schedule.
If not for Seo Gyeongmin's solo homer, who knows where we'd be…
At least Dennis was locked in and still throwing a shutout. The defense hadn't made a single error either.
The one downside: he was getting close to his pitch limit.
Once Dennis passed eighty pitches, his stuff fell off a cliff. He could usually limp to a hundred, but in a tight game like this they normally pulled him before ninety.
On good days it was a little better, but still never comfortable.
He was at seventy-three pitches so far. Even with decent pitch management, the end was coming.
"Call it six innings. Time to start getting ready~"
Jo Sangjun stood up and began stretching. Watching him, Kim Seokhwan—who usually came in right before Jo—started loosening up too.
If Dennis finished after six, the bullpen formula was Kim Seokhwan in the seventh, Jo Sangjun in the eighth, and me closing the ninth.
Kim Seokhwan was a little shaky, but he'd been looking pretty solid lately…
Cleaning time ended and the top of the sixth was about to start when the bullpen coach walked past the two of them and came straight to me.
"I heard you had a talk with the manager."
"Yes? Ah, yes."
"Can you go long?"
"…Yes. I can."
"How long?"
"The rest of the game. All of it."
I answered without hesitation. The bullpen coach looked a little surprised.
The rest of the game meant four innings. At roughly fifteen pitches an inning, that was about sixty pitches.
"…Dennis through the sixth. If the score hasn't changed by then, you're up in the seventh."
"Understood."
The bullpen coach called Kim Seokhwan and Jo Sangjun over and talked to them. Kim Seokhwan stayed ready; Jo Sangjun went back to standby.
If Dennis collapsed in the bottom of the sixth, Kim Seokhwan would go in. Of course, if we put up a big number in the top of the sixth, Kim would still go in…
"Out!"
Just like that, the top of the sixth was over.
All those hitters who'd sworn they were going to crush the ball for me—where the hell did they go? Inning ended in a blink.
Dennis had a tiny bit of trouble in the bottom of the sixth. After getting two outs cleanly, consecutive hits put runners on the corners. But he punched out one of only three strikeouts he recorded all day and finished six scoreless innings.
Another scoreless top of the seventh.
Then the bottom of the seventh. I took the mound.
"Ah~ Coming onto the mound for the Mirae Savers in the bottom of the seventh is Kang Hajin."
"Unexpected. I fully expected Kim Seokhwan—or if they wanted to go aggressive, Jo Sangjun—but they're going straight to Kang Hajin."
"Bringing the closer in for the seventh. What does that mean?"
"In the normal order it should have been Kim Seokhwan. And even with Jo Sangjun available, putting Kang Hajin in right now… isn't that Manager Park Donghoon's way of saying he's determined to lock this game down?"
"So we can take that to mean Kang Hajin will finish the game through the ninth?"
"Well… depending on the situation Jo Sangjun could still come in later. But if you look at the bullpen just a moment ago, Jo Sangjun was warming up and then simply sat back down."
"Yes, that's right. That was the bullpen situation just now."
"Exactly. Jo Sangjun was getting ready with him, then Jo went back in and Kang Hajin kept warming. That means they're trusting Kang Hajin with the rest of the innings."
"Kang Hajin's stuff has been so good lately that he should be more than capable of shutting them down… but he does have that one worrying weakness, doesn't he?"
"That's right. Once he goes past thirty pitches, his velocity and stuff drop off sharply."
"And yet they still brought him in for the seventh."
"It's one of two things, isn't it? Either they just want him to hold the line for now and hope the offense scores—that's one possibility."
"And the other?"
"There's also the chance that Kang Hajin has already overcome that weakness."