The Future of the Red Sox
Looking at our bullpen, I've always had the same thought.
This team is clearly haunted by the ghost of a guy who died without ever throwing a sinker.
The moment a starter came out and the bullpen took over, the sinker party began.
Right-handed sinkers, left-handed sinkers, tall guys' sinkers, short guys' sinkers, fast sinkers, slow sinkers.
Every kind of sinker imaginable threw a full-blown carnival.
Of course I knew major-league pitchers—especially bullpen arms—throw a lot of sinkers.
But this was a little much…
From the long relief guys through the winning setup relief, the setup man, and the closer—every last one of them just chucking sinkers. What were we even trying to do…
And then a mutant was born in that bullpen.
A pitcher who threw a forkball!
Katsuma Yua, to be precise.
After the trade, as a little time passed, our bullpen completely transformed.
Guys who'd been in the winning setup relief dropped into long relief, and the newly traded arms took their spots.
Something a little surprising happened along the way: Buxton, who'd been closing for Minnesota, started coming in ahead of Katsuma Yua.
Buxton's main weapon was a fast, sharp sinker too.
And our closer, Kyle Biggio, also leaned hard on a sinker alongside his quick four-seamer.
So our manager slotted Katsuma Yua right between them—and it worked perfectly.
Back with his old club, Katsuma Yua hadn't had much success as a starter.
But a forkball suddenly appearing in the middle of a bullpen that did nothing but fire sinkers all day produced an enormous effect.
A four-seam fastball that wasn't blazing, but still sat around the major-league average.
Solid command, the way you'd expect from a Japanese pitcher.
And a forkball that dropped harder than anyone had anticipated.
Maybe it was the bullpen role, but the movement on his pitches looked even better than when he'd been starting.
Yua himself said it was because he wasn't pacing himself the way he had as a starter—he was just throwing everything he had.
And that wasn't all.
Having lived the starter's life for a while, he could still handle longer outings.
Not that our grandpa of a manager would ever let him go that deep.
Anyway, with Katsuma Yua having fun in the middle with that forkball, the numbers for our closer Kyle Biggio improved afterward as well.
Probably because they were completely different types of pitchers.
Once the bullpen settled into place, a roster that had already been strong got even sturdier.
Thanks to that, we finally shoved the Yankees—who'd been stuck to us like glue—three games back.
Our grip on first place in the division was getting firmer by the day.
One of the best offenses in the league, a winning setup relief that no longer took a back seat to anyone, a one-two punch in the rotation that held its own against anybody, and a number-three starter finally getting his head on straight.
With results that refused to drop, the fans were already dreaming of a championship.
Katsuma Yua, the new hope of the Red Sox bullpen.
This guy was… how do I put it… just pure.
"Hajina."
"Hmm?"
"This…"
He'd kept going "Kang-san, Kang-san," so I told him he could just use my name, and now he called it without any trouble.
He was three years older than me, so I let him speak casually.
At first I'd tried to get him to call me hyung, but somehow he already knew what that meant.
Shame…
What Katsuma Yua handed me wasn't anything special.
Just water with vitamins mixed in.
The important part was that he'd mixed it himself and waited until my training was over to bring it to me.
It was his own stuff, but he kept saying it was good and looking after me like this.
He'd probably felt a little awkward after joining the team.
From what I could tell, he was grateful that I'd walked right up and treated him like a friend without any hesitation…
Honestly, I hadn't been thinking anything at all…
I'd just seen him, figured I'd say hello, and struck up a conversation.
And I'd only told him to use my name because "Kang-san" was getting on my nerves.
But apparently that had meant a lot to him.
Why?
On top of that, he'd been traded over in a hurry, and his wife was stuck living in a hotel and feeling lonely, so I'd introduced her to Han Song-yi.
The two of them had met a few times and seemed to be getting along fine.
He was grateful for that too, sidling up with a goofy grin.
Again, I hadn't really done anything…
Anyway, we were both pitchers, so we'd been hanging around together a lot lately.
"Hey~ What are you doing? Get over here!"
From across the way, Gordon Perry was calling for Katsuma Yua.
"Haa…"
At the same time, Yua let out a deep sigh and looked at me with the most pitiful eyes.
"Hang in there."
"…Haa…"
In front of me, Gordon Perry kept things short and carried himself with a certain weight. Around other people, though, he was different.
Especially with the guys he liked—tough? Wild? Or, in Korean terms, just big-hearted and boisterous.
The man was huge, his everyday voice was huge, and his laugh was huge.
True to form for an American, his gestures were oversized too, and sometimes while laughing mid-conversation he'd thump the other guy on the back.
There was nothing mean in it—just a natural gesture that came out on its own.
You know those women who slap the person next to them while laughing? Same idea, except this giant was doing it with hands the size of gloves, and that was the problem.
Yua was on the quiet side, and his usual demeanor was calm, so Gordon Perry clearly overwhelmed him.
Not that he had the personality to say so out loud.
So what could he do? When the man called, he had to go over and take a few more thumps on the back.
"I couldn't just work with Eric the way you do, could I?"
As if.
I was a starter, so it was barely workable. He was in the bullpen.
Not even the closer—coming in before that—and he wanted a personal catcher?
Looking like a rain-soaked puppy, Yua had no choice but to drag himself toward the bullpen where Gordon Perry was waiting.
Two people pounced on the spot Yua had just vacated.
Blake Buxton and Prospect Number One. No—Alan Thomas.
Those two had been glued together lately. Maybe because their personalities were so similar?
Both of them talked enough to drive a person insane.
Honestly, when the manager decided to send Buxton out ahead of Yua, I'd expected some pushback.
But he accepted it so readily that I was a little puzzled.
Later I heard he was just happy as long as he got into a lot of games.
Apparently the cushy closer job he'd held with his old team hadn't really suited him.
The second I heard that, the words this guy's crazy popped into my head, but luckily I didn't say them out loud.
I'd wondered if wanting so many appearances was about free agency next year, but that wasn't it either.
He said he was already making enough money to be satisfied.
He even said that if this team just took decent care of him next year, he wanted to stay.
People always said there were Red Sox fans all over the world… turns out this guy was one of them.
No real interest in money, didn't care about the role—just wanted to get into as many games as possible and throw as much as he could…
I couldn't quite get my head around him.
I'd wondered what he was muttering about every time he stared up at the sky on the mound, and it turned out he was thanking his mother in heaven.
Great… I'd been grumbling that some weird guy had shown up. Now I just looked like the complete jerk.
When I told him that, he just laughed for a long time. Definitely not normal.
"How about we hang out at my place this week?"
"You want to game again?"
"Yeah. I've got to pay Ho-min back for last time."
"I'll think about it."
Last time he'd begged so hard for us to come over that I'd gone just to shut him up, and we'd ended up playing games together.
People think every Korean is good at games, but there are also people like me with zero talent.
Buxton had been thrilled watching me get completely destroyed—until Ho-min turned around and absolutely crushed him.
That guy could game.
Now Buxton wanted a rematch for revenge, but honestly…
That day, between Buxton, Alan Thomas, and Ho-min, the three of them had talked so much that Yua and I nearly lost our minds. Did we really need to do that again…
"So you've gone and built yourself a faction."
"What are you talking about, you lunatic."
He claimed I was dragging Yua and those chatterboxes around and forming a clique… I wasn't dragging anyone. They came to me.
Totally different.
And why would I bother making something like that anyway.
Looking after my own body was already enough of a hassle.
This side of us got introduced back in Korea.
My numbers were good, so I showed up in Korean coverage a lot, and since those three had been stuck to me almost every day lately, they got introduced right alongside me.
The four who would carry the future of the Red Sox? Come on. There was hype, and then there was this. Way too grand.
The two chatterboxes talking nonstop. Me looking like I wanted to die of annoyance. Yua just smiling quietly at the whole scene.
Korean fans ate that up.
Thanks to that, the other three—me excluded—had become pretty well-known players in Korea.
"My social media's gone insane lately!"
"Same here. It grows like crazy every single day."
Yua and I didn't do social media.
Because I stayed off it, Korean fans piled onto the other two instead, and both of them were loving the reflected glory.
Along with that, they were getting mountains of gifts shipped over from Korea…
I'd casually mentioned that if they posted pictures of the gifts, Korean fans would love it—and after that, the gifts doubled.
Those two were grinning ear to ear.
Especially Yua. After footage of him bringing me vitamins went out, vitamins started pouring in without end.
"I don't think I could finish these even if I ate them for the rest of my life…"
"Nice."
"What am I supposed to do with all of this?"
"What do you mean, what? Share them."
"Oh! Should I?"
Even if they were just ordinary vitamins you could find anywhere, nobody was going to complain about a guy sharing his own stuff.
Especially not when a newly traded player was the one doing it—no one was about to push him away for that.
So Yua's vitamins got passed around the roster.
Yua got a little more love from the guys because of it.
Yua decided that was all thanks to me and leaned on me even more.
The two chatterboxes saw that and started sharing their own gifts too.
Those two got closer to the rest of the team.
They decided that was thanks to me as well and latched on even tighter.
And I was the one suffering.
"What is this? Something's gone wrong here."
"It's your karma, what else."
"……"
I had no idea why I was the only one getting more and more annoyed.
I couldn't find a single quiet moment to myself anymore…