Division Series
I barely made contact.
I hadn't expected it at all, but a sudden, sharp feeling hit me hard. This pitch is going to drop.
It was a ball I could have just let go by, but a thought flickered through my mind. If I miss this one, will that feeling even come back?
So I stuck the bat out right then and there.
Just as I'd thought, it was a dropping pitch. It fell a little lower than I'd anticipated, though, and the moment of contact sent a tingling jolt through my hands. That was probably why I couldn't drive it over. If I'd caught it clean, it would have cleared that massive wall for sure.
Then came the play that followed. My mind and the old man's—our manager's—were perfectly in sync. The opposing battery had never even considered that I, a pitcher, might take off running. So I ran. My jump wasn't the best, but catching them completely off guard let me slide into third nice and easy.
"Whew..."
And then Charles Bedard stepped in. He was batting ninth today, but this guy had hit fifth more than a few times during the season—his bat was solid enough. Especially with that power of his; he was one of those hitters who could really drive the ball for distance. So I was counting on him. Just one deep fly ball, that was all I needed.
Tick.
"Ah, shit..."
A weakly hit ball rolled slowly toward the second baseman. I'd broken for home the instant of contact, so there was no going back. I just stared at home plate and sprinted like a madman.
Shhhk.
"...Safe."
I'd even stuck a clean slide at the end, but the catcher's eyes were already looking toward first. The ball had been even slower than I'd thought. Either way, the score was 0-1. We had taken the lead again today.
In the fourth, both teams traded a run apiece. The Yankees' three-hole hitter, Vernon Classy, launched a massive home run over the center fielder's head to tie it up. But in the bottom of the fourth, Greg answered right back with a solo shot of his own, making it 1-2.
The game was decided in the fifth.
Rondo walked a batter and gave up a hit to put himself in a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam, but he worked out of it himself with a strikeout and a double play. Gude Macstein, on the other hand, issued back-to-back walks, completely lost his composure, and even uncorked a wild pitch. That was the difference—a pitcher who escaped his own mess versus one who collapsed under it.
After a day of rest, Game 3 opened at Yankee Stadium. Our side sent out John Greinsky; the Yankees countered with their true ace, Daniel Cruz. We stepped onto the field ready to close out the series right there.
But...
Daniel Cruz gave up a three-run shot in my first at-bat, then proceeded to pitch around me completely. He basically just walked me on purpose after that. The guy must have finally realized something was off—he never threw me a single clean pitch again.
While we stumbled for a moment like that...
The Angels had already moved on to the next round ahead of us.
Then came Game 4. Our starter was Jim Tomey, the guy who had held down the fourth spot in the rotation all season. The Yankees sent out Yasir Hernandez, the same pitcher who had started Game 1, gotten shelled early, and been pulled from the mound.
Everyone expected us to be a little short on the mound this time, and with the Yankees having no real depth behind him, people figured it would be a dogfight. But...
Incredibly, Jim Tomey threw the game of his life—seven innings, two hits, zero runs—while our lineup shredded the opposing starter into pieces in just three innings.
We took the game so lightly it almost felt anticlimactic.
"...Why the hell, though?"
"I didn't even know I had a knack for this side of things."
"So why, exactly?"
"Beats me. Haven't you seen the internet? They're saying I'm possessed. Everything I say comes true."
"......"
I really had no idea. With the guy who always lived glued to his tablet gone, I barely looked at the internet anymore. Or maybe it was more accurate to say I'd deliberately tuned out news from Korea. So I was completely in the dark until I learned that Ho-min had apparently blown up as a commentator.
Ko Mandeok was the first one to tell me. He called to congratulate me and then started gushing about how he never knew Ho-min could be that good at it. At first I had no clue what he was talking about. When I finally got ahold of Ho-min himself, every single sentence was dripping with swagger. He claimed he was just doing what he always did and had no idea why everyone was making such a fuss.
"...You're so damn annoying."
"Heh heh heh. Anyway, looks like hyung-nim's gonna have to stick around here a little longer, so just keep that in mind."
"Do whatever you want."
Truth was, I'd reached the point where I didn't really need a translator anymore. I'd only kept him around because having him with me was still useful in other ways. If he was having fun, that was fine by me. As a so-called manager, the only thing he actually did was drive, so that wasn't a big deal either. And he said he'd just send the analysis packets by email or whatever, so that worked out too.
"No problem, then."
As for Korea itself—apparently the whole country was going crazy. Even though fall baseball was in full swing over there, Ko Mandeok grumbled that articles about our side were getting more coverage than their own games. The reason was obvious.
The news that I, the Red Sox's Game 1 starter, would face off against Lee Gijun, the heart of their lineup, in the Championship Series had the whole place on fire.
"Did you see him hit? The guy's insane."
I saw it. Lee Gijun going deep in three straight at-bats. The maniac just kept launching every single pitch over the wall. The way he swung that bat... damn, it was downright vicious.
"You confident?"
"......Of course."
Who the hell would be? You just go out there and face him. And last time we matched up, it was doable enough. Come to think of it, ever since I met the Hooded Woman, I'd gotten him out in every at-bat except one. His condition right now might be completely off the charts, but that just meant I had to be careful—there was no reason to be scared of him.
While I was taking it easy, catching up with people back in Korea, the National League side was locked in a brutal war. The heavy favorites, the LA Dodgers, dropped the first two games of their Division Series and looked like they might actually pull off an upset loss—only to win three straight and claw their way into the next round after all.
They'd staged a massive comeback to get there, but the Dodgers were still in a bleak spot. Their ace, Kelly Holton—who was a lock for the National League Cy Young Award—had gotten hurt in Game 1 and couldn't take the mound again. The other pitchers weren't nobodies, of course, but everyone agreed that not having a true ace who could guarantee you one win was a massive liability in a short series.
That made it a golden opportunity for the Milwaukee Brewers, who had come up alongside the Dodgers. The whole team had gone completely berserk in the second half of the season and ridden that wave all the way to the Championship Series. It had been a long time since they'd stood on this stage, and their resolve was something else.
With the other side looking like that, some of our fans started getting a little carried away. "If we just beat the Angels, isn't the World Series basically a lock?" they were saying.
That was the sky-high expectation we walked into for Game 1.
"Go easy on me a little."
The first thing Lee Gijun said the moment he saw me before the game. This guy had lost his mind...
"Then I take it you'll be standing in the opposite batter's box, sunbae?"
"Huh? Ahahaha. Should I?"
Yeah, right. Like hell he would.
Rafael Anderson was standing right next to Lee Gijun, watching the two of us with pure fascination.
"This kid never leaves your side, does he, sunbae?"
"Yeah. I'm raising him."
"......"
He answered so dead seriously I had nothing to say. Hearing it like that, I almost started to wonder if it was actually true. Rafael Anderson had no idea what we were talking about and just kept smiling the whole time.
After a short greeting with the two of them, I headed back to Gordon Perry. The reason I went to Gordon Perry instead of Eric was simple: the starting catcher wearing the mask today wasn't my usual battery mate Eric—it was Gordon Perry himself.
In a game this important, the old man apparently couldn't bring himself not to use Gordon Perry. He'd already talked to me about it ages ago, and while I felt a little bad for Eric, I couldn't exactly say no. Honestly, the guy was just that good. His bat went without saying, and defensively he was on another level too. Eric and I had clicked beautifully all season, but in a short series and a stage this big, you couldn't ignore experience either.
Right up until the game started, I was agonizing over it. Whether I should use one of the two remaining Boosters for today's game or not. Honestly, I was confident I could pitch well without it. But using a Booster would let me lock down the win even more completely.
"Nervous? Don't worry about a thing. Just do what you always do and it'll be more than enough."
Gordon Perry must have seen me fretting. He walked over with an uncharacteristically warm expression and said that, and I nearly burst out laughing. Trying to look nice with that terrifying face of his? Who was he kidding...
"Th-thanks."
"Good. Shall we go, then?"
Hey, I still hadn't decided yet. Gordon Perry grabbed me with that ridiculous arm of his and hauled me along whether I liked it or not. Against my will, the decision was made: no Booster today.
"Hoo..."
I climbed the mound and looked around the packed stadium as the Angels' leadoff hitter stepped into the box.
"Play ball!"
Wham!
"Strike."
A full-power four-seamer on the inner half. The first pitch of the Championship Series buried itself hard into Gordon Perry's mitt.