Championship Series Game 1
After inducing a foul with the first-pitch slider, I threw the exact same pitch again—a slider that started away and dropped. Unlike the first pitch, where his bat had chased, Lee Gijun didn't so much as twitch. He took it for a ball.
Then came the third pitch.
I shook off the sign once, but Gordon Perry flashed the same one again, so I set myself. Throwing three straight pitches to the same spot made me uneasy—that was why I'd shaken him off—but Gordon just stared back like he was telling me to trust him.
Pop.
"Strike."
Three consecutive pitches running away. Only this time it wasn't another slider. It was a changeup that broke even farther off the plate. Lee Gijun's bat cut nothing but air.
"Hoo..."
The next sign made me sigh the second I saw it.
Thinking back, Gordon had been catching the last time I faced Lee Gijun too. And now he was calling the exact same pitch that had gotten the out in that first at-bat. Except that ball had been a rocket—one that almost left the yard if it had been a hair higher.
What had Gordon said then? Something about having enough arm strength to keep it in the park?
Apparently he was thinking the same thing tonight.
Pop.
I meant to throw it exactly where Gordon wanted. Hit or miss, I was going to honor the sign.
"Ball."
Instead the pitch rode higher than both Gordon's target and my own intention. Lee Gijun's bat never moved. Ball.
Did I freeze up?
I'd been ready to throw it even if it got crushed. My body just refused.
Gordon flipped the ball back with a little shake of his head, clearly thinking I'd pulled it on purpose. Then he put down the high fastball sign again.
This time I nodded without hesitation.
Who throws two straight high fastballs to Lee Gijun? That pitch is his bread and butter. Which meant even he wouldn't expect another one right away. Gordon was probably thinking the same thing.
And our read was mostly right.
Crack.
His timing was late. Still, somehow he got the barrel on it. The ball rolled softly toward first baseman Greg.
"Out."
Bottom of the first. Rafael Anderson took the mound.
As if to make a point, he threw nothing but fastball variants to leadoff man Arthur Burgart and the next hitter, Alan Thomas. Result: two outs. Both flied out to the outfield.
"...What a show-off."
I'd mixed four-seam, two-seam, and cutter. He'd gone four-seam and sinker. Same result either way, and he was grinning about it. Weird guy.
Now what, though? Eun-hyung was a different animal from the first two.
I wondered if he'd open with a slider the way I had. His slider wasn't considered nearly as dangerous as his other pitches, so he rarely threw it.
Rafael Anderson promptly crushed that hope.
"Strike."
Eun-hyung swung through it.
"...A curve?"
Apparently he'd decided the slider wasn't good enough and opened with a curve instead. Same family of breaking balls, so maybe he figured it was close enough.
Then another disappointment.
"Strike."
From where I sat, Eun-hyung looked like he'd been sitting on another curve. Instead a four-seamer bored in on his hands and he couldn't react. Two strikes.
"Tch. Boring."
Eun-hyung raised his hands on the bat just a fraction and dropped his shoulders a hair. That was the look he got when he was in an 0-2 hole. In that stance he turned into a pure contact machine. When he eventually punched a single through, the pitcher's face was always priceless.
He only did it once in a blue moon. Today he was already in that mode in the first inning. Big games really did change a guy's approach.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He fouled off three straight pitches, even the ones that were clearly balls. Rafael Anderson finally cocked his head, made up his mind, and buried a sinker. Eun-hyung flied out. End of the first.
Bottom of the second, two outs.
Greg and Ernie Witt had gone down on a strikeout and a grounder. Gordon Perry stepped in.
Every hitter who'd faced Rafael Anderson so far agreed his sinker was filthy tonight. The way each of them came back shaking their heads told me it really was that nasty.
Crack.
Gordon, though, just casually punched the first-pitch sinker the other way for a clean single.
"Man... of course."
Sometimes I wondered if there was anything that guy couldn't do. Forearms that looked like they could snap a human spine in half, and yet he could still drop a soft opposite-field single like it was nothing.
He hit. He caught. He beat people up. Age had slowed his baserunning a little, but that was hardly a real problem.
No wonder Eric had been thinking about retirement.
Two outs, runner on first.
I walked up from the on-deck circle. On the way to the box I suddenly remembered how Rafael Anderson had opened the game by basically copying my pitch mix. And behind him, Lee Gijun was visible at third.
"Hmm..."
I tipped my helmet to the umpire, then took it off. Rested the bat between my legs and wiped the front of the helmet with my hand. Picked the bat back up and wiped the handle the same way. Stepped in left foot first, then right, stomped the dirt twice. Pointed the bat at the pitcher and gave it two sharp little chops.
"Kh."
Some weird noise came from behind me—half laugh, half irritation, hard to tell.
Rafael Anderson, who'd been staring at me with wide eyes, suddenly started snickering. Lee Gijun's face, meanwhile, was pure thunder.
The reason their reactions were so instant was simple: every single thing I'd just done was Lee Gijun's exact pre-at-bat routine. It hadn't changed one bit since our Korean days. I'd watched it so many times I could copy it perfectly without even trying.
Must have looked pretty ridiculous. The smile stayed on Rafael Anderson's face for a long while. Apparently he hadn't expected this kind of nonsense in Game 1 of the Championship Series—not some All-Star exhibition.
Well, who started the copycat game first?
Crack!
"Ah, shit!!"
The first pitch was pure garbage—a straight four-seamer right down the middle. Fast, sure, but so obvious I never dreamed he'd throw it. And because I'd been sitting sinker, my timing was late. Foul.
The curse slipped out the second I swung. Looking at him, I was pretty sure he'd just lost his composure for a second while laughing.
I'd wasted a golden chance that wasn't coming back.
Rafael Anderson looked just as shocked; the smile vanished completely.
"Ball."
"Foul."
"Foul."
"Ball."
The next four pitches all danced on or just off the outer edge. Count: 2-2, sixth pitch.
This had to be it. I sat on the sinker he still hadn't thrown once.
CRACK!
Finally the inside sinker came. Because I'd been waiting, I squared it up clean. The ball dropped between center and left and rolled all the way to the wall.
With two outs Gordon had gotten a great jump and should have scored easily... except the center fielder ran it down fast and threw. Still, on a hit like that, why only third base? And with two outs, no less.
Hadn't I just said Gordon's baserunning wasn't a real problem?
No. That was definitely a problem.
Thwack.
"Out!"
A reeeally big problem.