VS the Dragons
The atmosphere in the stadium wasn't particularly good.
And for good reason—my eephus pitch that had just struck out the previous batter must have looked pretty humiliating even to the crowd. They probably thought I was toying with him.
In truth, that was exactly the mindset I'd been pitching with, so I didn't particularly care. Getting cursed out by the opposing fans just meant I was doing my job right, didn't it?
Judging purely by the mood, it felt like trash might start flying any second, but it hadn't quite reached that point yet.
"Looks like I can push it a little further. Heh."
I was busy figuring out how to throw next to piss off that old man scowling in the dugout even more when the next batter stepped into the box.
Hwang Jongdu.
My peer. We'd entered the Dragons together and spent time in the Second Team side by side.
I'd made the first team a little earlier, and Hwang Jongdu had come up in his third year. Then he'd immediately locked down the starting second-base job. In short, he'd gotten on the old man's good side.
Maybe that was why—he followed every single word that old man said, from one to ten.
It wasn't just sucking up to stay in the manager's favor or keep his spot. He genuinely followed him with all his heart.
Loyalty to the person who'd recognized him? Something like that, I supposed.
He and I had hung out a lot from the first year. Same age, and we'd faced each other often in high school games, so there was no awkwardness between us.
On days off, the three of us—me, Ho-min, and him—had gone out for drinks a few times.
When I'd made the first team first in my second year, he'd congratulated me sincerely.
I'd personally thought he was a pretty decent guy…
The problem between us started in the third year. More precisely, after I'd ignored the manager's orders, skipped special training, and gotten kicked out of spring training.
After Hwang Jongdu came back from spring training, he started avoiding me little by little, and once he locked down the starting second-base spot, he completely ignored me.
I didn't know exactly what had happened during spring training without me. All I knew was that Hwang Jongdu had completed every single training session the manager ordered without missing a beat.
Taeseong hyung and I had concluded that he probably thought his choice to follow the manager and become a starter was right, and looked down on me for defying the manager and getting banished to the Second Team.
At first I'd wondered if Hwang Jongdu's personality would really go that far, but after experiencing complete cold shoulder even after I returned to the first team, I came to understand that might be the case.
So what did he think now? Back then, even though I'd made the first team, I was just a pitcher they called up whenever and used as they pleased. Now I was a proper closer for a team.
Would he still try to ignore me?
Standing in the batter's box and looking at me, I gave Hwang Jongdu a slight nod of greeting. It was hard to tell, but maybe he was a little surprised?
The ball flew quickly toward Hwang Jongdu in the box. Having seen me throw a brushback pitch in Kim Gyuyeol's at-bat earlier, Hwang Jongdu leisurely pulled his hips back and dodged the ball.
But the ball suddenly broke sharply into the strike zone.
"Stri~ke!"
It was a strike that filled the inside corner perfectly.
"Our closer's stuff is nasty, huh?"
Catcher Ko Mandeok returned the ball to the pitcher and smirked.
Even though they were on different teams, Hwang Jongdu didn't bother responding to Ko Mandeok, who was his senior, but the voice came again.
"I heard you completely ignored our closer? But what can you do? The tables have completely turned now, haven't they?"
"… Did Hajin say that?"
"No? The rumors are everywhere. That you were so busy kissing the manager's ass you didn't even treat your peer like a person."
"Who's saying that!"
"Hey, this guy's trying to steal signs."
Provoked by Ko Mandeok's taunt, Hwang Jongdu snapped and turned toward the catcher, only for Ko Mandeok to shamelessly snitch to the umpire right away.
"Both of you, cut it out and play the game."
"Yes, sir!"
Ko Mandeok answered cheerfully and waved his hand at Hwang Jongdu, as if telling him to look ahead.
Grinding his teeth, Hwang Jongdu turned his head back, and I quickly sent the sign.
And almost simultaneously, the pitch began.
"Ball."
"Damn it…"
Once again the ball flew quickly inside, and Hwang Jongdu had no choice but to dodge. He pulled his hips back again, and this time the ball didn't break.
Naturally, a ball call.
The problem was that if Hwang Jongdu hadn't dodged, it was close enough that it might have grazed him. It was a course that could easily be seen as a brushback pitch.
"Shouldn't you give him a warning for this?"
Hwang Jongdu huffed and complained to the umpire.
"Warning? Why? For throwing inside?"
"He was deliberately trying to hit me."
"Are we crazy? Why would we create a crisis for no reason?"
Once again Ko Mandeok and Hwang Jongdu's exchange was dragging on.
"I told both of you to stop. Keep it up and you're ejected."
The umpire could tell the pitcher was deliberately threatening the batter. But he couldn't issue a warning for a pitch like this. If it had been something clearly problematic like the pitch to the face in the previous at-bat, maybe.
The pitch just now was merely one that dug in a little deep. Moreover, the first pitch had been called a strike.
The third pitch came flying. Seeing the ball heading toward his body again, Hwang Jongdu once more pulled his hips back.
Partly because he thought there was no way I'd throw it again, and partly because his body reacted on its own to the ball flying in an instant. But…
"Stri~ke!"
Another pitch that curved into the zone.
"Hoo…"
Hwang Jongdu let out a deep sigh at the fact that he'd done nothing but pull his hips back three times and the count was already against him.
Ko Mandeok was having too much fun right now. It felt like everything would work no matter what he did. In fact, since Kang Hajin had come up last inning, things had mostly been going as planned.
Four-seam, slider, changeup, splitter, curve—whatever pitch Kang Hajin could throw, it seemed like it wouldn't matter.
The batter waiting for the next pitch in front of him was already done. He was trying hard to look calm, but his mental state had already been thoroughly shaken.
Looking at Hajin waiting for the next sign, he recalled the conversation they'd had before the game.
"You roughly know the strengths and weaknesses of the Dragons batters, right?"
"Yeah, well. To some extent."
"Want to call the signs?"
"What? Nah, it's fine. Let's do it together."
"Alright, we'll do it that way. How do you want to approach the matchups?"
"How else? We crush them. Make their mental state completely unravel so they're so pissed they can't even sleep."
"Heh. Who do you hate the most among them?"
"I hate all of them."
"But there's gotta be one you especially want to destroy."
"Uh… I want to kill the captain too, Kim Gyuyeol is a total bastard, and the rest… tsk."
"So there's not a single one you'd go easy on."
"That's right. That Jongdu bastard completely ignored me too… Seriously, not a single one."
"… Okay. I've got the concept."
He couldn't understand how the batter standing in front of him could have ignored Hajin.
He himself had faced Hajin during his Dragons days. Back then, Hajin wasn't a player who got attention like now, but even then, he wasn't an easy pitcher to face.
He looked like nothing special, but when you actually faced him, he was a tricky pitcher—that was Hajin. And yet this completely unremarkable batter in front of him had ignored Hajin.
Get thoroughly wrecked by the pitcher you ignored.
Looking at the batter, he was actually standing even closer to home plate than before. After getting burned three times in a row, maybe he figured it was better to just get hit…
From the way he was gripping the bat, it looked like he was full of determination to smash it if another slider came.
If it's a slider, he'll hit it, and if it's a four-seam, he'll take it with his body? That's gonna hurt a lot…
He briefly considered throwing a four-seam to hit him. But if he actually hit him here, all the previous pitches would become a problem.
And he couldn't throw the slider that was so obviously being waited for either. He didn't feel like going outside now either.
What's a way to mess with him without intentionality…
Then a sign came first from Kang Hajin.
Splitter?
Kang Hajin was a pitcher who was good to work with as a catcher. Pitchers who followed almost all of the catcher's leads were surprisingly few.
So when Kang Hajin occasionally said he wanted to throw a certain pitch, he usually accepted without a second word. It had worked well every time, so he had no complaints.
And that Kang Hajin had signed that he wanted to throw a splitter. That meant he had something in mind.
He set the catcher's mitt and signaled to throw as he wanted.
Kang Hajin grinned and went into his characteristic slow windup, and the ball left his hand.
Huh?
It was just a tiny bit more inside than the previous slider. Looking at the course alone, you could think he was trying to fool him with another slider.
But the pitch he'd thrown now was a splitter. The height was…
If it drops from here, what happens?
Countless thoughts flashed through in an instant.
In that time, Hwang Jongdu's bat started. And the ball also changed its trajectory toward where it needed to go.
If Hwang Jongdu hadn't been so greedy about having to hit it, he probably would have dodged easily.
But because of getting burned three times earlier, he was full of the desire to just swing for one without thinking front or back.
Thanks to that, the bat that had started early tried to stop late, and as a result, he couldn't deal with the sharply dropping ball.
"Ack!"
The ball landed exactly on Hwang Jongdu's instep.
"You son of a bitch!"
A barrage of curses exploded simultaneously from the home team's dugout and the stands.
And…
"Out."
The umpire ruled that the bat had gone around.
Honestly, I didn't think it would go in that perfectly…
When I'd sent the sign to Ko Mandeok, it was a "if it works, great, if not, whatever" kind of thing.
The one thing I'd worried about was what if Ko Mandeok dropped the ball… I'd thought we might allow a runner on a dropped third strike.
But even then, it would just be giving up first base, so no big burden.
But it went exactly as I'd thought… no, even better. Who would have known Hwang Jongdu would swing so recklessly like that.
He seemed to have been waiting for a slider, but from the way the bat came out, he was so impatient that even if I'd actually thrown a slider, it might not have been a miss.
Hwang Jongdu collapsed, clutching his foot and groaning, then was helped back to the dugout. He glared at me a bit, but I didn't bother engaging.
And Manager Ko walked out.
Probably because of the umpire's out call.
As soon as Manager Ko came out, he started arguing about why that was a swing.
"It went around, so it's a swing. Heh."
In the meantime, Ko Mandeok approached me, covering his mouth with the mitt, and snickered.
"You… are really something. How do you even think of hitting him like that. Heh heh."
"I wasn't trying to hit him? That idiot just swung blindly out of stubbornness. Honestly, if he'd just pulled his foot back a little, he would have dodged."
"That's true. By the way, how long is he going to keep that up… He's going to get ejected at this rate."
Manager Ko's voice was getting louder and louder.
At first he'd been arguing why they weren't asking the first-base umpire about the swing, and in the blink of an eye while I looked away, it had escalated to finger-pointing.
Because of Manager Ko's age, the umpire had been talking nicely, but if he comes out like that, the umpire won't just let it slide…
Sure enough…
"Ejected!"
The umpire didn't tolerate the finger-pointing.