First Title in Thirty Years
Visner had thrown an absolute disaster the day before. Conditioning issues had kept him out of Game 2, and Game 3 had been more of the same—until now.
"Stri~ke! Out!"
His stuff was simply filthy. Even against a dangerous stretch of the order—starting with our captain batting cleanup, then Park Jeonghun and Kim Tae-seong—he carved them up like he was taking out yesterday’s frustration, one vicious pitch at a time.
Bottom of the seventh. Our mound changed hands again. Kim Seok-hwan took over.
"Why not Jo Sangjun…?"
Kim Seok-hwan was a solid bullpen arm, no question. But this season he’d been pushed down the ladder by Oh Gyu-shin and ended up in that awkward middle ground somewhere between the chase crew and the Winning Setup Relief. With the score knotted and Jo Sangjun still available, sending Seok-hwan out felt like a genuine surprise.
My mild worry as I watched the field proved completely unnecessary.
"Stri~ke! Out!"
Crack.
"Out!"
Crack.
"Out!"
He leaned hard on his best pitch, the forkball, and retired the side with one strikeout and two infield grounders like it was nothing.
Visner and Kim Seok-hwan both came back out for the eighth and erased that inning the exact same way—sharp, clean, no drama.
Then the ninth arrived.
Crack!
Jo Chang-jun’s leadoff single put a runner on first with nobody out. The Raiders dugout wasted no time making a pitching change. And of course the man who climbed the mound was Kwon Jong-jin again.
A team with nothing left in the tank still had him, and the “maybe” I’d been dreading turned into the inevitable.
He fired a 150 km/h four-seamer.
"……How the hell does he still do that?"
I could throw that hard too. But my recovery came from the Hooded Woman’s little miracle pills. This guy was doing it on pure, stubborn stamina.
"Foul."
"Foul."
Choi Min-gi tried to lay down a sacrifice bunt and fouled two straight. Manager Park went for the bold call—three-bunt.
"Out."
The ball popped just high enough to settle into the waiting catcher’s mitt. One free out handed over, runner still glued to first.
"This is getting twisted…"
Completely twisted.
Crack.
"Out!"
"Out!"
The bat we trusted—Shane—bounced one right back to the pitcher for a 1-4-3 twin killing. Just like that, the top of the ninth evaporated.
Bottom of the ninth. Another change on our mound. Kang Chanjung, the man who’d locked down the Closer role for us all season, jogged in to face them. One walk, nothing more. The inning ended clean. We headed to extras.
CRAAAAACK!!!
It’s gone. It’s over the wall.
Left fielder gives up the chase! The ball clears the fence! The Savers take the lead again in the top of the tenth!!
Whether he’d been sitting on it or not, he unloaded on the first pitch. That pure, ringing crack sent the white ball soaring into the distance. Watching him flip the bat high and start his slow trot around the bases sent goosebumps racing over every inch of my skin.
"Holy… our captain… damn… just damn…"
Kwon Jong-jin never even looked at the home-run ball. He just hung his head. But he recovered fast, retired the next three hitters, and walked off the mound.
"Huh? What… what’s going on?"
I figured—hell, everyone figured—Kang Chanjung would come back out to close the tenth. Instead the pitching coach climbed the mound, the bullpen door swung open, and one player came sprinting in.
"Jo Sangjun! Jo Sangjun! Jo Sangjun!"
He’s got ice in his veins, too—exactly the kind of guy you want finishing a game this big.
Jo Sangjun strode onto the mound like he owned it and started firing. First appearance since Game 1, and the ball looked sharp as hell. Crisp mitt pops echoed one after another. Warm-ups finished. The batter stepped in. Then the real work began.
"Stri~ke!"
"Ball."
"Ball."
"Foul."
"Foul."
"Stri~ke! Out!"
The sequence was almost absurd—five splitters out of six pitches. He teased the low edge of the zone, floating the ball a ball’s width in and out, daring the batter to bite. One tiny miss and he could have been destroyed. Yet he never hesitated. Not in a game this important. Not in the final inning with a championship on the line.
"Damn…"
Pure admiration.
That was a little dangerous, wasn’t it? A touch lower and into the zone and we might have seen a big fly ball.
The Savers battery exchanges signs. Second pitch—strike. Painted on the inside corner. 0-2 count, advantage pitcher.
Really aggressive. Another 143 km/h fastball jammed right onto the hands.
He just kept coming. Velocity down from last year—almost nothing above 145 since the second half—and the secondary stuff not quite as sharp as it used to be, except for that still-reliable splitter. Yet here he was, attacking a foreign middle-of-the-order bat like he had nothing to lose.
Third pitch.
"Stri~ke!! Out!!"
Jo In-beom stepped into the box. Of course the order had to be two-three-four. We’d handled two and three cleanly, and now the scariest bat of the night was up.
Maybe we’d won the first three games too comfortably. Tonight I couldn’t relax for a second.
Jo Sangjun flashed a sign. Ko Mandeok answered. Jo Sangjun nodded, set, and delivered.
First pitch.
CRAAAAACK!!
The ball left the bat with a murderous sound and landed in the absolute top row of the stands just outside the pole. Jo In-beom flipped the bat, then immediately looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole.
Jo Sangjun had nearly been destroyed on the first pitch. He could have taken a breath, reset. Instead he took the new ball, exchanged signs instantly, and went right back to work.
Close again. Should have been higher. Command looked a hair off.
"Does this guy have no fear? Two outs and he’s still swinging like a maniac?"
Jo In-beom’s aggressive cuts never stopped.
"Ball."
"Ball."
"Foul."
"Foul."
"Foul."
"Foul."
"Ball."
"Foul."
Every time he made contact the ball screamed deep into foul territory.
The ball left Jo Sangjun’s hand, floated upward as if weightless, then drifted leisurely toward home. It traced an elegant arc, then plummeted sharply as it neared the plate, settling into the catcher’s waiting mitt right on the outer edge of the black.
The scoreboard flashed 97 km/h.
And then—
"Stri~ke! Batter out!"
"Wooooooooaaaaah!!!!!!"
I couldn’t think. The only thing in my head was getting to that man on the raised mound as fast as humanly possible—the one who’d dropped to a crouch and covered his face with his glove.
I sprinted toward the mound screaming nonsense no one could understand, face split wide in a grin while tears poured without end. We crashed into Jo Sangjun, into Ko Mandeok who’d already gotten there, into our captain, and just held on.
In the middle of all that pure, chaotic joy, Jo Sangjun pulled free for a second and stepped right in front of me.
"Hajin."
Tears still streaming down his face.
"Yes, hyung-nim! You were incredible out there. Seriously amazing! Hahaha."
"…Thank you. Because of you I finally got to win one."
"Come on, what are you talking about? The whole team was great this year."
"No, I mean it. Thanks to you I got to finish my pitching career the right way. Really… thank you."
"……What?"
What the hell is this guy suddenly saying on a day this good?