Spring Camp (Practice Games)
I'd made quite a few new friends since arriving at camp.
Sharing a room with Hwang Chan-young went without saying. We'd trained together a few nights lately, and now he wanted to head out every single day—I was starting to slightly regret hanging out with him in the first place.
I'd also gotten pretty close with the new foreign pitcher, Marte, and the foreign batter, Shane.
Of course we barely understood each other, but these guys never seemed interested in waiting for answers. The moment they spotted my face they came over and started talking, and before long I could even pick up a few of the phrases they used all the time.
Besides them, I'd started trading jokes with the rookies, and finally I'd gotten to hang out quite a bit with Kang Chanjung as well.
As we grew closer, something a little strange started to stand out.
"Why do pitchers always want to teach me something the second they see me?"
"Why? Who's teaching you what?"
"Chanjung hyung. He said he'd teach me a cutter…"
Kang Chanjung was the kind of guy the word "easygoing" fit perfectly. Friendly to everyone, and just a little sly when the mood struck him.
"Huh?"
"Just looking at my face makes them want to teach me a brand-new pitch, I guess."
"Haha. Y-you didn't actually learn it, did you?"
Ko Mandeok's expression was something else. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes had narrowed into a complicated squint.
But honestly, was this my fault? I hadn't said a word.
"No."
"Phew…"
"I just heard about the grip and how to use the wrist a little."
"Hoo…"
"Hehehe. I'm not throwing it. I've already got a slider, so no reason to learn one now."
"Right? Exactly. You've already got a killer slider—why bother throwing a new cutter?"
"Why not? If you're thinking about injuries, a cutter's better."
"…… Just stop already."
There was a reason Ko Mandeok freaked out like that. It wasn't for nothing that I kept saying pitchers always wanted to teach me something the moment they saw me.
Before Kang Chanjung, Marte had approached me the exact same way—offering to teach me a sinker. He knew full well I'd only roughly learned the grip back then and left it at that, yet he still got startled and acted like this all over again.
Was he scared he'd mess up now that the already complicated signs had grown even more?
"Seven or nine. Isn't it pretty much the same?"
When I said that, I got a whole load of curses. What do you know… I honestly didn't understand why he freaked out so hard over just two extra pitches when he already memorized every last one of those complicated team signs.
I never told Ko Mandeok, but the truth was I wasn't completely against learning it. I was thinking of developing it for later—just not right now.
A sinker had clear velocity advantages over a two-seamer, and a cutter over a slider. So not now, but later. When I reached a bigger stage, I figured I'd need them.
Of course, looking at the power of the two-seamer and slider I was throwing now, it would be a shame to abandon them. They had to work pretty damn well, after all.
I thought I'd heard somewhere that a pitcher having a ton of pitches wasn't automatically a good thing. Better to have one or two rock-solid ones instead.
"But wait a second. Honestly, if I tried throwing it, I feel like I'd throw it pretty well…"
That wasn't arrogance. It was trusting the experience I'd built so far.
The first live pitching we held near the end of the first spring camp went pretty well.
After a light bullpen session in the morning, the afternoon's first live pitching finished at forty pitches instead of the planned thirty.
The reason was the hitters… Everyone piled in wanting a crack at the knuckleball I'd shown for the first time.
Shane especially demanded I throw nothing but knuckleballs—no other pitches needed. The result… a four-pitch strikeout.
He claimed he'd faced knuckleballs a few times in the minors and even recorded hits off them, but watching him barely get the bat on it or swing clean through air only made me more confident in the pitch.
I stepped into the batter's box myself too. Bottom line: the quality of contact was decent, but the ones I really squared up were mostly fastballs. Big-breaking offspeed stuff was still tough for me.
We trained in Australia until the twentieth, then moved to Japan. The location was Okinawa—the same place we'd experienced once during the finishing camp.
Travel, a day of rest, three days of training, then another day of rest.
The next day we finally started practice games against the other teams holding camp in Okinawa.
I didn't get a turn in the first two games. Against the Warriors and the Stars, Manager Park built the lineups around the two foreign players and the young pitchers.
After another day of rest, the next practice game waiting for us was the Jaguars. Manager Park named me the second pitcher for that one.
Lee Yong-hun, who'd been our fifth starter last year, came out first and threw two innings.
Maybe because his velocity still hadn't fully come up, he gave up three runs, but the way he nipped the corners looked solid.
Then came the third inning.
"Four-seam, curve. Just those."
Manager Park's order landed.
Talk of me converting to a starter had already been circulating. I hadn't gone out of my way to announce I'd be starting this season, but it had become a fact that anyone who needed to know already knew.
I hadn't particularly tried to hide it, and it wasn't something that could be hidden in the first place.
On the other hand, the fact that I'd learned the knuckleball still hadn't drawn any real comments.
I'd been thinking of keeping that one under wraps since it was a new pitch… Whether our team's mouths were just tight or not, it was still well covered so far.
I'd thrown it during live pitching, and things had gotten a little noisy in the process, so I'd assumed word would have spread naturally. It was unexpected that it hadn't.
So today I'd only planned to hide the knuckleball… but Manager Park suddenly restricted me to the four-seam and the curve. Just those two.
A batter stepped into the box. I'd never seen him before, and he looked young—probably a rookie they were developing in the Second Team.
The first pitch Ko Mandeok called was a four-seam right down the middle. The opening sign was a little surprising, but I had no intention of shaking it off.
It was only a practice game, after all. Hit or miss, I just needed to throw what I was supposed to throw and throw it well.
Thwack!
"Strike!"
Around the mid-140s? The batter just stood there staring like he had zero intention of swinging.
He clearly hadn't expected me to plant one right down the middle on the first pitch. He tilted his head slightly and set up again.
Another four-seam sign. This time he wanted it high—a course that would be fine if it caught the zone, or even a little higher.
Thwack!
"Strike!"
This time the batter seemed to have made up his mind and swung, his body turning freely. The problem was the bat came around way below the ball.
The gap between ball and bat was huge. And that was on a four-seam.
"Is that guy swinging without even looking at the ball?"
After staring at the batter for a moment, Ko Mandeok put down a curve sign. I'd expected him to ask for three straight four-seams.
Seeing he wanted a pitch that dropped completely into the dirt, it looked like he was hoping for another refreshing fan swing.
"Out!"
A curve that plummeted straight toward the ground right in front of home plate. The batter gave another free-and-easy swing, the ball bounced once, and Ko Mandeok blocked it before tagging the dazed hitter standing there blankly.
The batter who retreated weakly was replaced by one who went out on a grounder to second on a four-seam that dug into the inner half.
Then the foreign batter who'd joined the team this year settled into the box.
He was as tall as our Shane. Not in build, of course. Shane was… a monster.
The opposing foreign hitter stretched out those long arms and waved the bat around, gauging the distance. Looking at that reach, even a pitch that ran away outside would probably still catch wood.
Curve?
Ko Mandeok, watching that batter, put down a curve sign. High, at that.
Throwing up in the zone to a guy that tall seemed more dangerous than not… but like I'd decided earlier, today I had absolutely no intention of rejecting signs.
The ball left my hand and dropped sharply. Only, unlike my plan to keep it a little above the zone, it snuck into the strike zone.
Crack!
"Foul!"
"Oh shit…"
He was a classic uppercut swinger. Whether he'd been sitting on a four-seam or not, the bat came out too early and produced a foul, but if I'd actually thrown a four-seam it probably would have flown into the stratosphere.
I'd told myself it was fine to get hit a few times and give up runs… but the moment I almost got tagged, my heart dropped.
Ko Mandeok put down a four-seam sign this time, then stood a little taller and even held the mitt higher, as if to say it needed to be higher. He hadn't liked the previous location.
Whoosh~
Pop!
"Strike!"
A high pitch two or three balls out of the zone. Even on a ball like that, the batter's bat swung freely.
His desire to show something was more than full—it was overflowing.
"A splitter or a changeup would be perfect right about now…"
With those long arms, a slider would probably still catch the bat. Against a hitter that aggressive, stealing his timing with a changeup or luring him with a splitter would have been ideal…
But the only pitches allowed to me today were four-seam or curve.
Crack!
"Foul!"
Crack!
"Foul!"
"Foul!"
"Foul!"
"Ball~"
"Foul!"
That foreign batter… was tenacious. Even with that big uppercut swing, he somehow kept finding a way to make contact.
He seemed to be timing the four-seams especially well, yet he still managed to cut the curves that had a solid velocity gap.
"How do you even do that? I can't… I'm jealous as hell…"
Being jealous was one thing, but I wanted this at-bat over soon. How many pitches had I already thrown…
It wasn't just me. Ko Mandeok put down a sign that said it was time to finish it.
Four-seam. Full power.
Bang!
"Stri~ke! Out!"
The batter flinched at the four-seam that bored into the lefty's inner half. The ball was planted in the zone.
Looking at the pitch that had just struck him out, the shape of the batter's mouth was clearly "Wow!" There might have been an F-word right after it too.
Then the fourth inning.
Unlike the third, it moved fast.
Three pitches, two pitches, two pitches.
I finished the inning by inducing grounders and short fly balls from all three hitters.
My first appearance in a practice game ended right there.