This Is Korean-Made
"So I've finally made it here..."
I'd been snagged for it.
An away series against the Colorado Rockies. I was slotted as the starter for Game 2.
My first impression of the infamous Coors Field?
"Pretty decent, actually?"
People had talked it up so much that I'd braced myself for real trouble. But standing here now, I couldn't quite put my finger on what was supposed to be different.
That was just me, though.
Everyone else was another story. Rondo, especially—our Game 1 starter—did a few half-hearted laps that barely counted as jogging, then spent the rest of the time stretching. He said he'd toss a few easy pitches later and call it good.
Apparently that was the way to do it. Otherwise you'd be gasping for air in no time.
A little while later Rondo really did finish his prep by throwing just a handful of soft tosses. It looked like half the usual routine was missing, enough to make you wonder if he was even ready. Nobody batted an eye.
"What the hell is going on in this park..."
This ridiculously huge stadium really was something special.
Game 1 got underway. In the top of the first our lineup failed to cash in a one-out, runners-on-second-and-third chance. Then came the bottom half, and Rondo took the mound.
One out. He threw a ball, then the second pitch—
Crack!
A high fly ball. I figured the center fielder would snag it without breaking a sweat and barely paid attention—until the rest of the guys in the dugout jumped up to track the flight.
"Ah..."
"Huh?"
What was this?
What had looked like an ordinary pop-up just kept sailing, sailing... and barely cleared the wall.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
Rondo watched the ball and shook his head slowly, the look of a man who'd already given up. I'd never seen that expression on him before.
Even after the homer, though, Rondo was a pro. He and Gordon Perry worked the signs hard, picking the hitters off one by one and shutting down any further damage.
When the inning ended and Rondo came back to the dugout, he walked straight to the oxygen tank like it was the most natural thing in the world and clamped the mask over his face.
Second inning, third inning—same routine. Every time he returned, the oxygen came first.
Watching him, I learned the Coors Field playbook: keep pregame work to a bare minimum, and hit the oxygen the second you step off the field. People said four-seamers were garbage here, so Rondo leaned almost entirely on off-speed stuff. I filed that away too. Eric would be calling the game tomorrow, of course, but still.
Rondo's final line: five innings, three runs. The bullpen gave up two more after that, but the bats bailed him out and he walked away with the win.
"Slider?"
"Yeah. We're going slider-heavy on the mix today."
I'd only found out yesterday that Eric had almost no experience at Coors Field. When he told me, my first thought was basically So what? I already knew Gordon Perry had kept him on the bench most of the time; it wasn't exactly shocking.
Eric, though, took it seriously. He'd gone straight to Gordon Perry for advice on how to sequence the pitches. Perry had answered with the kind of fiery, detailed breakdown only he could give. The verdict: sliders.
From what I gathered, we were bumping the slider usage up until it was nearly even with the four-seamer, then mixing in two-seamers and curves. The knuckleball was completely locked away—apparently it never looked pretty here.
That was the plan we settled on as we headed into the game.
Our grandfather of a manager clearly wanted me pitching only today. The park was brutal enough on a pitcher without me insisting on hitting too. I couldn't give that up, though.
Why?
"I want to take my cuts too. Everyone keeps saying the ball flies forever here."
If you've come all this way, you might as well taste it. Besides, as the Game 2 starter I wouldn't get to hit before or after. Do it while you can.
CRACK!!
Top of the first. After the first two hitters went down quietly, Eun-hyung stepped in and produced a sound that was pure violence. The ball vanished in an instant. A second later a distant clang echoed back from somewhere way out there.
"...How far did that even go?"
It was an absurd shot. It looked like it had cleared the center-field fence by a mile.
"I think the park record was 504 feet?"
Feet never quite land for me, but convert it to meters and the insanity hits immediately—over 153 meters. Completely unhinged. Taking a ball smaller than a fist and launching it more than 150 meters with a thin stick of wood. And Eun-hyung's blast just now had looked almost that far. That was how ridiculously far it had traveled.
"Hahahahaha!"
Even he seemed stunned; he came back to the dugout still laughing and couldn't wipe the grin off his face. Good for him. I wanted one of those myself...
Greg, batting next, chugged his slow legs into a double, but nothing else came of it and the inning ended. We led 1–0 when I took the mound.
"What the hell is this."
Before the first hitter stepped in, I threw a full-effort four-seamer the way Eric and I had planned. The ball didn't go where I expected. I tried two more; both finished lower than I wanted.
The biggest trademark of my four-seamer is the way it seems to rise—the classic rising fastball. The second is the command. Both were off.
"...Not sure how this is going to go."
I finished a slightly uneasy warm-up. The first mountain man stepped into the box, already waving the bat back and forth like he was trying to hypnotize someone.
Surprisingly, Eric wanted an outside four-seamer for the first pitch. Low. Even if it was a ball, keep it low. The mitt was set just kissing the edge of the zone.
First pitch. The feel off my fingertips was fine—exactly the same sensation I always got. But the ball itself finished even lower than the mitt. The hitter's bat cut empty air for a strike.
"...If that had been where I wanted it, he would've crushed it."
I wasn't sure whether to call that lucky or not. My command had failed, and that failure had somehow bought me a strike.
Second pitch: slider.
"Foul."
The bat came out again on the one that broke in on his hands; he got just enough of it to send it back foul. The slider's command was just as bad. That pitch was supposed to bury itself further inside. The one I'd meant to jam him had simply died halfway there. If that guy had been looking in...
"This isn't working..."
Not the time to chase velocity. Better to give a little speed and focus on putting the ball where I wanted it. The four-seamer that was supposed to climb was sinking. The slider was breaking less than usual.
"They said the curve does the same thing, right?"
I had to accept that every pitch was going to move differently here and adjust.
"Ball."
Another low four-seamer. This time the hitter laid off and took the ball. Then the fourth pitch—
"Batter out!"
The power curve buried itself perfectly on the outer edge of the zone.
"Okay... that one's interesting."
That curve had come in almost like a slider. None of the usual floaty, hanging feel. Eric liked it too; he jabbed a finger at me from behind the plate. I got the meaning, but the gesture still felt a little...
Next up was Will Wise, the guy who'd gone deep yesterday. Pre-game scouting said he was the hottest bat in their lineup right now—and not just at altitude. He was raking even after they came down the mountain.
"Ball."
A slider that ran away from the right-hander missed for a ball. I'd aimed a little further outside to account for the reduced break, and it had simply become a ball. Still no real feel yet. The four-seamer, though—I was starting to get that one.
"Strike!"
If it wants to sink, just throw it higher. Sure, if it doesn't do what I think, I might get lit up, but what else was I going to do?
Eric clearly wanted to be careful with a guy this locked in. He called for the same pitch as the first one—not the one that had nicked the zone, but the one that had missed completely the way I'd actually thrown it.
"Ball."
No swing. He was seeing the ball well. Hot hitters get hot eyes too, I guess.
Then came the sign for an inside two-seamer. There used to be a saying that only two-seam pitchers survived this park. It was one of the few pitches that still worked, which was probably why the saying existed. So I threw it with confidence—a two-seamer boring in on his hands.
CRACK!
"...Holy shit, that thing just flew."
Is that why they say there's no answer for a guy who's locked in? It had felt pretty good out of the hand, but the second he hit it you already knew it was gone. The ball, of course, landed well beyond the wall.
Will Wise flipped his bat with gusto and started a slow trot toward first. The little bastard. That counted as a bat flip too...
Hit the homer, stand in the box a second to admire it, toss the bat, jog slowly to first. I didn't care. I'd seen it a hundred times in Korea, and I'd done it myself more than once back home. Even after coming over here I still flipped the bat whenever the mood struck. So I wasn't exactly in a position to complain.
My teammates, however, felt differently.
Greg, playing first, said something sharp as Will Wise passed him. Wise turned his head, fired something back, and kept going. Around second, past third, and at home plate Eric had a few choice words of his own.
"...I'm fine with it, honestly."
They were getting mad on my behalf and I couldn't exactly tell them to stop.
"Just don't start a fight..."
Luckily it stayed verbal. The home-plate ump more or less stepped in, and neither of them seemed interested in turning it into a real mess; both just turned away.
Pop.
"Out!"
Pop.
"Out!"
I got the next two hitters on two-seamers. For a guy who'd just given up a homer, the two-seamer still felt decent. Will Wise had simply been that good.
Top of the second.
I was batting sixth today, which meant I was leading off the inning. I usually hate leading off on a day I'm pitching—you come straight off the mound and have to scramble. Today, though, I was fine with it. No one on base meant I could do whatever I wanted.
This at-bat I was going back to the old days. The old swing. The all-or-nothing full cut, just like Lee Gijun.
First pitch missed outside. The break said cutter. Honestly it didn't look that sharp.
Then the second pitch.
The one I'd been waiting for. The same pitch Eun-hyung had crushed for his homer. The one this pitcher liked to throw when he needed a strike. Changeup.
CRACK!!
An ugly uppercut, almost like a golf swing, lifting from low to high. I got under the ball that was fading and dropping slightly in on me and just launched it.
This was the important part. The bat coming back around after the swing—don't stop. Give the wrists a little flick and let go.
The bat spun in a beautiful arc and flew off into the distance.
This is a Korean-made bat flip!
They'd probably never seen one up close before. To all the guys who thought a bat flip was just casually tossing the stick, I showed them it was an actual craft.
Even after the bat was gone I stayed in the box, hands on my hips, watching the flight. It went a good distance, but it still couldn't match Eun-hyung's monster shot. And I'd been aiming for it, too...
"Hey! Get going!"
"Yeah, yeah~"
The catcher's teeth looked like they were grinding a little, but what was he going to do? They started it.