Korean Series Game 2
After shutting down the top of the second cleanly, I came back down and watched our team's at-bat in the bottom half with a blank stare, when a sudden thought struck me as rather strange.
This Savers team that had truly been hopeless, and me—who had looked just as hopeless when I joined them—had somehow ended up in the Korean Series?
But what felt even stranger was how the players who had been stuck in the lower ranks until last year now treated this entire situation like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Back when I first joined this team last year, the clubhouse atmosphere had been decent enough, but the hunger had clearly been missing…
Our guys now? They didn't give a damn whether the guy on the mound was Kwon Jong-jin or anyone else.
When they made an out and came back, they looked ready to lose their minds from frustration—you almost never heard anyone say, "Well, it was Kwon Jong-jin, so what can you do?"
Confidence. You could see it—the confidence that came from holding second place all season long and then snatching first at the very end.
Crack!
"Wooooaaaaahhh!!"
Bottom of the second. Kim Tae-seong's timely hit brought our captain home from second.
Our team had drawn first blood.
Kwon Jong-jin still looked composed up on the mound, but his stuff told a different story.
"Man, what a letdown."
"What now?"
"If you'd just gotten one more hit there, we could've coasted the rest of the way."
I needled Ko Mandeok, who had just struck out and come back to the dugout.
"Hey! I still made him throw seven pitches!"
"He's barely scraping 145 km/h because he's gassed…"
"That's just the velocity dropping! His off-speed stuff is still nasty!"
"Yeah, yeah…"
We failed to add on, and the bottom of the second ended. I kept needling Ko Mandeok all the way until it was time for him to head back out to the mound.
Maybe that was why.
"Stri~ke! Out!"
Kang Hajin faces the leadoff hitter in the top of the third and strikes him out on five straight four-seam fastballs.
Completely different pitch sequencing from the first two innings. Up until the second, he'd been carefully rationing his fastball.
Anyone could see this was pure spite. A little teasing and he was already getting revenge like this.
I shook my head at the endless four-seam signs, but he was completely unmoved.
And hadn't I just gotten the strikeout? Ko Mandeok had been calling for it in the zone. I was the one who freelanced a high fastball just off the plate and induced the swing-and-miss.
Then another four-seam sign.
"This guy is seriously…"
Ah, to hell with it.
Oh! He couldn't handle it. Did the signs not match up just now? Ko Mandeok looked completely startled.
Looks that way. The catcher couldn't track the knuckleball with his mitt at all.
Ko Mandeok yanked off his mask and stormed out to the mound.
"Truce?"
"You crazy bastard!"
"Truce, okay?"
"You absolute lunatic… I'm sitting there waiting for a 160 km/h four-seamer and you throw a knuckleball? Are you even human?"
"Then why'd you keep calling that sign?"
"Haa… you real piece of work. I actually thought a four-seamer would be perfect right there, you know?"
There were no runners on and a ball out of the zone wouldn't have hurt anything, so I'd just gone for it.
Whether it worked the way I wanted or not, Ko Mandeok's fingers started flashing through signs again in a blur.
Ah~ Kwon Jong-jin allows another run. The lead stretches to two.
It's still early, but looking at Kang Hajin's stuff today, if they give up any more runs this game could slip away completely. The Raiders dugout needs to make a decision soon.
Bottom of the third. Our team scored again.
Hit. Sacrifice bunt. Productive out. Hit.
Manager Park had successfully squeezed out another run.
Kwon Jong-jin looked like he was really struggling today.
Why had the Raiders manager put Kwon Jong-jin out there in the first place? They still had Visner.
Even though he'd taken the loss in Game 5 of the playoffs, Visner had been the other pitcher carrying the team all season right alongside Kwon Jong-jin.
Sure, Visner had only gotten three days' rest too… but for a starting pitcher, one extra day of rest meant everything.
And even if it wasn't Visner, they had other options. They had two other starters who could easily give you ten wins in a season…
It was only the bottom of the third, and Kwon Jong-jin was already pouring sweat on the mound.
I truly didn't get it. Their manager or our Manager Park—what kind of future were they seeing that made them call these aggressive moves?
Crack!
"Oh!! Captain!!"
"Nice! Let's get one more!!"
Seo Gyeongmin ripped another hit and stood on first.
Two outs, runners on first and third.
Finally someone emerged from the Raiders dugout.
Raiders manager Oh Jeong-geun walked slowly out to the mound, a white baseball in his hand.
The Savers' half of the sixth is finally over. They plated two more runs this inning, and the score is now 9-0. The gap just keeps growing.
Ah… this isn't it, Raiders. Kwon Jong-jin came out early… and yes, you can give up runs. You might have to lose the game. But you can't just roll over like this. Even if you're going to lose, you have to claw and fight until the end. Right now the Raiders players look completely lifeless.
The bigger problem is that not a single Raiders hitter has even reached first base yet, has he?
Exactly. Kang Hajin's stuff is just that good today. Still, they need to focus and fight for even one run—one single hit.
After the third, once Kwon Jong-jin was pulled, I could feel the Raiders players getting a little rattled.
Ko Mandeok was on the same page as me, so we decided to seize the opportunity.
A fastball over 160 km/h. Even when you're locked in, those are hard to hit. You almost never see that kind of velocity, so adjusting to it is tough by nature.
But when the other side already looks unsettled and a little anxious like this?
There was no reason to mess around mixing in off-speed stuff and dancing around them.
"Stri~ke!"
Two-seamer jammed him inside.
"Stri~ke!"
Same tunnel, then a splitter that dropped out from under him for a swing-and-miss.
"Ball."
The cutter missed just off. I'd hoped the bat would come along for the ride—shame.
"Stri~ke! Out!"
Finally a 162 km/h four-seam fastball. I just pumped it straight into the zone with no pretense.
The hitter clearly hadn't expected it to come right down the middle and froze for a looking strikeout.
"At this rate I might throw another perfect game without even trying~"
Honestly I wasn't particularly hungry for a perfect game. I'd already done it once… it'd be nice, but if it didn't happen, whatever…
The truth was, once the score got this lopsided a little earlier, Manager Park had started looking like he wanted to pull me. But with me in this kind of groove, he just couldn't bring himself to make the change…
And it wasn't like I could walk over first and say, "Please take me out," either.
Awkward all around.
Crack.
"Ah…"
The Raiders' Kim Min-seok got ahold of a two-seamer.
A ground ball racing down the third-base line.
Park Jeonghun laid out and knocked it down, but it was just a shade too deep to get the out at first.
"Spoke it into existence. This damn mouth of mine…"
The second I mentioned a perfect game, an infield single.
The moment the first-base umpire called him safe, Manager Park came out of our dugout.
I handed over the ball from my glove before he even said a word.
"…… Good work."
"Thank you."
"Don't feel like finishing it yourself?"
"I'm good."
"Alright."
Hyeon-bin came sprinting out of the bullpen.
Watching that bigger frame hustling in made me snort out a laugh.
"Wooooaaaaahhh!!! Kang Hajin! Kang Hajin! Kang Hajin!"
As I got close to the dugout, the entire crowd rose to their feet, chanting my name and applauding.
I tipped my cap, gave them a bow, then stepped into the dugout for high-fives all around.
After that, Ju Yang-gyu went in for Shane, and Jeong Jong-seong put on the mask in place of Ko Mandeok.
Hyeon-bin didn't let the runner I'd left on base advance any farther and shut them down cleanly through the eighth.
Then Chan-yeong came on in the ninth.
Chan-yeong struck out the side to end it.
Final score 11-0. A complete thrashing.
After the game I came home and watched the postgame review broadcast.
It wrapped up with Raiders manager Oh Jeong-geun's interview, and I just stayed sprawled on the couch listening to Ho-min.
"It's absolute chaos out there. Not often both sides get roasted this hard."
"That bad?"
"Yeah. Your team's getting called out for a fake starter by the Raiders fans. They're furious."
"Fake starter? The guy never even took the mound."
"They announced the number-three starter and then the ace showed up instead. That's the complaint."
"Ugh…"
Honestly I'd seen this coming.
Even I thought it was a bit much… swapping him out before the game with an "injury"… and if Marte had actually been hurt it might've been different.
"They're even more pissed because they announced Marte as the Game 3 starter."
Hospital tests had shown nothing major with Marte, so Manager Park himself had said he'd start Game 3.
Yeah, their fans had every right to lose it.
"Fine, that's us. Why are they melting down on their own side?"
"Kwon Jong-jin. He only got two days' rest. It's not even about the loss—it's 'what if he got hurt?'"
"If they'd won today those same people would've been calling him a genius manager. Wait a second though. So basically only their fans are doing all the screaming?"
"Uh… is that right? Yeah. You're right."
Honestly fans of every other team were just sitting there with popcorn. Whoever won, most of them wouldn't care that much.
Our fans? Two games, two wins—why would they be mad?
Only the Raiders fans were in full nuclear meltdown mode.
"You're hitting in Game 3?"
"Yeah. Looks like it."
"Make sure you check behind you for flying liquor bottles. Heh heh."
"…… Raiders fans are pretty civilized though."
"You're hilarious. Those people are Korean, aren't they? Properly pissed-off Koreans at that!"
"……"
This bastard. Now he's got me nervous for no reason…
After a day off we arrived at Suwon Raiders Stadium.
The crowd had started packing in with scary intensity long before first pitch, and in no time the stands were completely full.
Then the cheers and the boos began.
"Marte's gonna have a rough day."
"No kidding. It's already like this—once the game starts… oof…"
"We've got a lot of our own fans too though, right? It'll be fine?"
At our Hyeon-bin's innocent comment—
"When you go to a game, do you cheer every single time the pitcher throws?"
"…Don't you?"
"Which side cheers harder—when their team's hitting, or when their team's in the field?"
Yeah. You cheer less on defense.
I'd always thought that was just obvious… until I learned there were times it wasn't true at all.
"You bunch of thug bastards!! Hurry up and drop dead already!!!"
Top of the first. The second leadoff hitter Jo Chang-jun stepped into the box, every kind of curse imaginable started exploding from right behind home plate.
This wasn't booing anymore—this was straight-up dual-wielded swearing.
The language was so filthy we all just stood there half-dazed, wondering if that was even allowed.
"…… We're still good, right?"
While everyone in the dugout was still reeling—
Crack!
"You! $%@#$%@#$^%@$%$@$#!!!!!"
Jo Chang-jun ripped a single and stood on first. Then he pointed over at our side and put on a little celebration.
Did he really have to do that…
"…… W-wow, our Chang-jun's got a stronger mental game than I thought."
His mental game looked solid. His decision-making, though… a little less so.