Clash of the Aces
A spectacular defensive play to make up for the error.
Choi Min-gi, whose heart had nearly dropped into his stomach, clawed his confidence back with that gem of a play. And that confidence carried straight into his bat — leading off the bottom of the first with one out and nobody on, he laced a clean single into right field.
"Oh~ looking good so far today?"
Ko Mandeok's completely unprompted jinxing.
"Out!"
"Out!"
"…Ah, come on. Would you shut that mouth already!"
After three consecutive slow curves, a slider came flying in and Shane went down with it — double play. The first inning ended with each side trading one hit and nothing more.
There is nothing more frustrating for a pitcher than not being able to trust his infield defense. That hollow, sinking feeling when a ball you were certain would be an out somehow mutates into a safe call and a runner appears on base…
Top of the second. I retired the Raiders' four- and five-hole hitters, Jo In-beom and Gwak In-heon, on a strikeout and a fly ball. Then came the six-hole hitter, Go Yeong-su — a guy who had taken endless abuse as the national team's locked-in three-hole hitter. His numbers hadn't actually been that bad, but the national team itself had been a dumpster fire, and he'd been stuck in a middle-of-the-order role his own club never even asked him to fill. He'd taken more than his fair share of heat for it.
Go Yeong-su had come back from national team duty with his swing completely shattered. It seemed like a mental thing more than anything. Time had gradually put him back together, and now his old form had mostly returned. He wasn't a hitter who made you feel particularly threatened — but he definitely had that one big swing in him.
I threw him three pitches. One ball, two strikes. Ko Mandeok flashed a sign to waste one, I nodded OK, and I floated a changeup off the outside edge. Go Yeong-su's swing collapsed, but he somehow managed to lunge the bat out and catch a sliver of it on the end…
The ball dribbled down the third-base line. Third baseman Kim Tae-seong, wary of Go Yeong-su's power, had been playing a step deep. He should have charged in and fielded it cleanly — but for reasons known only to him, Kim Tae-seong took his sweet time with the ball.
Go Yeong-su wasn't particularly fast, but he sprinted full-out to first. Kim Tae-seong, on the other hand, was lazy about it.
"Safe!"
By a hair at first base.
"Ah…"
"Hey, you idiot! Get your head in the game!!!"
The crowd erupted at the brain-dead defense. Problems in the field, for the second time after the first inning.
"I'm going to lose my mind."
This time I couldn't even bring myself to say it was fine. If it had been a straight error, at least you could write it off as a mistake. This play should never have happened. Lazy defense. Literally lazy.
And Manager Park was not about to just sit there and watch it.
"Another error-caliber play, following the one in the first inning."
"The Savers' infield defense looks like a real problem today. This is a critical matchup with both teams' aces on the mound — and they're showing us plays like that? They need to lock in!"
"Manager Park Donghoon makes an immediate defensive substitution. Kim Tae-seong heads to the dugout, and Park Jeonghun comes in to take his place."
"Looks like they're prioritizing defense for now. Park Jeonghun may leave something to be desired at the plate, but he's an outstanding defender."
Park Jeonghun. That guy's defense was the real deal. Excellent reads, a seriously wide range. A batting average stuck in the .100s was the problem, but his glove alone made him someone you could trust out there. No matter how much our team had been bouncing around the bottom of the standings until last year, there was a reason a guy hitting under .200 kept a steady roster spot in the first team.
The restless stadium settled down, and the game resumed.
A bat that swung without hesitation — as if he'd been sitting on the splitter. And true to the old saying that the ball always finds the new defender, Lee Jun in the seven-hole ripped a sharp grounder toward the third-base bag.
Park Jeonghun's body moved almost at the same instant.
Thwack!
"Out!"
"…Whoa…"
A gasp rose on its own.
The ball had kicked up right in front of the third-base bag and caromed foul-side. Park Jeonghun's body slid across the dirt and somehow snared that vicious, escaping hop. Then, still down on one knee, he twisted and fired to first. A clothesline of a throw that sank clean into the waiting glove of Seo Gyeongmin.
"That was filthy…"
Coming right after that earlier shambling excuse for defense, it looked even more spectacular. The moment the out was called at first, I sprinted over toward third and gave Park Jeonghun a thank-you and a couple of solid glove-taps on the backside.
He grinned, looking a little embarrassed.
The anxiety I'd been carrying about today's defense eased a notch.
"Wow. Was that not an absolutely incredible play just now?"
"It was. The ball hopped up right in front of the bag and was spinning foul-side. I was sure it was getting through — and Park Jeonghun not only snagged it, he made a perfect throw."
"Kang Hajin looks like he can't close his mouth. Haha. He seems pretty stunned."
"Of course he is. When a defender makes a play like that for you, a pitcher has no choice but to stand there with his jaw hanging open. He looks thrilled."
I came into the dugout and Kim Tae-seong was nowhere to be seen. Figured he'd gone to the bathroom, and I refocused on the game.
Seo Gyeongmin hit one hard — straight at the center fielder. One out. And stepping into the box in place of Kim Tae-seong, the man who'd just come in to play third: Park Jeonghun.
"That guy's overdue for a breakout… it's honestly a shame."
"Yeah…"
"Wasn't he a power-hitting prospect when he was younger?"
"…Really?"
Park Jeonghun wasn't particularly tall, and he had a fairly slender build. No matter how you looked at him, he didn't exactly scream power hitter.
"That guy hit four home runs in a single game back in his school days."
"What?"
"How do I put it… when he made contact, the ball just seemed to carry weirdly far."
"Ah… but then…"
Why not now…
"Isn't it obvious? Injuries hit, he came back from rehab, the swing wasn't the same, so he started tinkering with his form, got impatient, tried this and that — and it only got worse…"
"Ah…"
It really was a shame. That glove, plus a real bat…
CRACK!!
The words had barely left our mouths.
"Huh? What was that! What is that!"
"Don't go foul. Stop curving! Please!"
"The pole! The pole! The foul poleeeee!!!!!"
"WOOOOOAAAAAHHHH!!!"
The stadium flipped upside down.
A home run nobody saw coming from a defensive substitute. And not just any home run — one ripped off Kwon Jong-jin, widely regarded as the best pitcher in the country.
It had been a big-breaking slow curve from Kwon Jong-jin, coming in from behind the righty-turned-lefty Park Jeonghun. That slow curve of Kwon Jong-jin's — the one left-handed hitters always said they couldn't see until it suddenly hooked into the zone. Park Jeonghun had turned on it and pulled it clean into the right-field foul pole.
He clearly hadn't expected a home run either. He was still sprinting hard around first toward second before he finally realized what he'd done and eased off the gas.
"I don't even know how many years it's been since I last saw that guy hit a homer. Holy hell. I've got chills."
"……Same."
Park Jeonghun finally touched home plate and came back to the dugout wearing a dazed expression. And the first person to greet him wasn't anyone else — it was Manager Park himself.
"Well done."
Just two plain, unadorned words. Park Jeonghun's face crumpled all at once. Of course, the expression vanished almost immediately under the murderous congratulatory beating his teammates proceeded to rain down on him.
"Thank you, hyung."
"Hm? Ah, come on. I just got lucky."
He waved it off, but confidence was written all over his face.
Kwon Jong-jin, having given up the solo shot, recovered as if nothing had happened and calmly retired Jeong Jong-seong and Ko Mandeok in order to close out the inning.
Riding the high of that first-strike run, we headed into the top of the third.
Crack!
"Out!"
Crack!
"Out!"
Crack!
"Out!"
From the eight-hole through the leadoff hitter — three consecutive batters, and I worked them relentlessly inside. All three balls they put in play happened to head toward third, and none of them escaped the glove of Park Jeonghun, who was operating at absolute max capacity today.
A slow roller. A hard smash. Even a big-hopping bounder. Every single one of them was vacuumed up as if the glove itself were sucking them in.
"Hyung. I think you might actually be possessed today?"
Ko Mandeok said it with a faintly vacant look on his face.
"None of those were particularly tough plays."
Park Jeonghun smiled with that characteristic sheepish expression of his.
It was probably still way too early to think it — but somehow, a little spark of expectation started to grow. That this guy might just do something special today.
"Ah~ this isn't easy."
Kwon Jong-jin, just back from finishing the bottom of the third, scratched his head and gave a hollow little laugh.
"Why? You're pitching well."
The one answering beside him was the veteran catcher Kim Gyeong-seok — the catcher who always worked Kwon Jong-jin's starts.
"We're losing."
"It's only one run."
"Hyung. You really think we can score on that guy?"
He pointed at the opposing pitcher, who had just climbed the mound and was casually tapping his rosin bag.
"Of course. He throws well, sure, but there's no way we can't scratch across a single run. He gets hit plenty."
"Yeah? Hmm…"
"What? You don't think so?"
"I don't know… just feels like it might be tough… and their defense suddenly got a whole lot better, so it's looking pretty frustrating out there."
"Defense? Ah~ third base? That guy's always been known for his glove."
"Shame. We should've scored before the switch."
Their conversation carried far enough to reach Manager Oh Jeong-geun, who was leaning against the dugout railing, watching the field.
The lineup had turned over, and the top of the fourth brought the second time through the order.
Crack.
"Out!"
Leadoff hitter Kim Min-seok's ball was gobbled up by the shortstop. Ground balls, one after another, ever since the first inning.
Manager Oh Jeong-geun's eyes drifted to the lineup card taped up in the dugout.
Evan Cawitt and Jo In-beom went down on a strikeout and a routine out, and the top of the fourth ended without any real damage. The bottom of the fourth, the Savers' half, likewise came and went without anything of note.
And then came the top of the fifth — when the Raiders' lineup finally started to change.