Don't Run! Fight Back!
In a sense, Noh In-seong hitting a home run in the first game had been genuine good fortune.
At least, that was how he felt about it.
"...You bastards. Do you actually want to play baseball with me? Or do you want to run a get-on-base-and-steal simulator?"
After taking one on the chin in the opener and then handing over a whole game, Daejeon had gotten persistent — relentless, even — about requesting intentional walks against him.
"Tch."
Whether he took it as a slight against him personally, Song Jin-wook's face had hardened. He whirled on the next pitch with a ferocious swing —
Crack--!!
The hot shot tore through the gap between short and the mound — and the shortstop threw his body in front of it, stopping it at the first line of defense.
"Got it! First!"
With the opposing shortstop flat on the ground smothering the ball, the second baseman scooped it up and cut it down at second — the second line of defense.
"...No, dammit. Don't come in reading the situation like that. Now it looks like I'm tipping signs."
A hitting cycle is, by and large, something close to an untrustworthy phenomenon. A man will suddenly smack four home runs in one day, then follow it up by "cycling" straight into an oh-fer.
K · GIDP · Groundout · Flyout · 1 RBI
Song couldn't bear to watch the broadcast right now — but he was almost certainly watching, and if he was, a stat window like that had to be pinned at the bottom of his screen.
The comments wouldn't be much kinder.
Had they not won the championship, those threads would have sprouted abuse on top of abuse, plus a fully annotated motive and methodology for murder.
"Lighten up. We won, so at least the flaming's milder."
"...Dammit, you said you were buying me dinner to cheer me up!"
"In-seong. If you're going to talk shit, do it while paying compensation."
To console the two men who had shoveled so magnificently today, Noh In-seong had bought them dinner.
The menu: steak. Healthy, easy on the stomach.
The two of them shoveled meat into their mouths nonstop between rounds of grievances.
"Shet! People's standards have gotten dirt-high these days! Numbers like ours would get us babied and cooed over anywhere else!"
"Exactly! I mean, with a .400 hitter parked in front of you, of course .330 looks feeble! In a normal year, I..."
"...So that's what you two meant by 'babied and cooed over.'"
Cutting the meat with both hands, airing complaints nonstop, and somehow still eating like a champ — a genuine marvel, but.
"Against the guys actually fighting us in the standings, I'll probably keep getting walked. Which means you two had better hit."
"...Augh, the steak's losing flavor by the second."
"...Was that the point of buying us dinner? And here I was happy about it..."
"I've got records I'm chasing too, you know. Let's put in some effort, gentlemen."
At this rate my RBI record won't get touched until the season's over, you out-count-manufacturing bastards. Well — I can only try once the chances actually come back around.
"They can't put me on forever. All you have to do is hit a cool five hundred."
"...That five hundred includes sacrifice flies, right?"
"If you're telling me to hit over .500 in base hits alone, I should just put you down right here at the table..."
Hey, hey, don't grab the tomahawk bone like that. Even wrapped in a napkin, that thing's hot...
"Ack! SHIT! It's fucking hot!"
"...No, seriously. Is your intelligence real? When exactly did the average American IQ regress to the Stone Age?"
Fortunately the steak had cooled a little by then, so Choon-sik's hand survived intact.
The next day, watching everyone file onto the bus with their faces contorted in misery...
"...Ah. Can't even tease them. I'm on the list too."
I'm in a foul enough mood myself that I can't give them grief.
Crazy Korean Baseball Association. However backed up the schedule is, is this really the answer? At this point just abolish days off altogether.
"Rules are rules. Nothing to be done about it."
The manager was saying that, too — though his face was dirt-honest about how he felt.
"...If you honestly hate watching your own hitters and pitchers get ground into paste, smash that upvote?"
"...Hah."
Don't go imitating Socrates while shyly holding up a thumb, sir.
If a bad law is still law, you lop off the neck that wrote it. What's all this about obeying it?
The doubleheader. When games pile up from rainouts and the like, it's the strongest medicine the league is allowed to prescribe.
"No bread? Then let them eat cake." — and there was even a country that said that and ended up hosting a neck-cutting show.
What guts does it take to run this in 2051? Are they trying to die?
"Ugh, the shit-stirrer inside me is groaning! Yellow card...!!"
"Agh. How is it that managing this one man stresses me out more than managing an entire ballclub?"
When the manager hung his head that low, it almost sounded sincere.
...It's not, right? That was a joke, right?
"We've got games next week no matter what. Never mind the two rainouts..."
The manager stood before the team delivering a stirring speech about keeping their spirits up —
and not a word of it reached anyone's ears. A noon start on a short lunch break, in this heat? Simply delightful, thank you very much!
"Agh, whoever drew up this schedule had malice in mind, pure and simple."
The Changwon–Grizzlies three-game set with the rainout folded in, fine, whatever.
But Daegu for two, Incheon for two, Busan for two? Maybe don't cram a week's worth into seven days.
"Is finishing everything up before October that important..."
"They've got the national team's results to think about, don't they?"
Song Jin-wook remarked offhandedly from beside him, still working on his taping.
And yet these people go and pick me for that same national team. Shouldn't they be careful not to upset me?
"You're a man nobody can predict what he'll be doing for twenty-four straight hours. A guy who might take offense just walking down the street."
A devastatingly accurate review. Now I'm offended.
"Well then. Shall we go take this frustration out on Daejeon first?"
...To cut straight to the conclusion: they couldn't do it in game one.
5–3. A two-run defeat.
Worse, against You Hong-jin he'd been dragged around for seven full innings without scoring so much as a run. This bastard's walking me too?
He shot the man a glare that said You coward! — and Hong-jin averted his eyes, mumbling something about "a choice with no alternative."
He did add two more stolen bases, but the bats behind him stayed silent as ever.
"Aren't you supposed to be a national team ace, you gutless bastards."
He lodged his complaint with the potbellied opposing first baseman standing nearby, and the belly grinned wide and told him:
"Why are you telling me? Tell him. It must be pretty dire if even he's avoiding you."
It felt like being told the after-sales service was outsourced — please direct your inquiry to the manufacturer — and his mood soured twice as fast.
After the game, during a short break, Noh In-seong rounded on the two of them and roared.
"Agh, you Song Jin-wook–Choon-sik coalition bastards! Just hit it ONCE!"
Is it really that hard to let me come up?!
"I can't hit it, you punk! He keeps painting spots where my swing can't close!"
"That damn changeup is big-league call-up material! I haven't seen one like it since I got called up myself!"
He'd even bought them meat the day before and encouraged them, and the rebuttals just kept coming.
Right. Hard mode against the guy who's second in ERA, second in wins, and first in strikeouts. Got it.
"Fine. If you two can't hit in the night game either, I'm really going to grind you into the field."
"...Can you even grind a person?"
"Ohhh SHIT. The intrasquad-game nightmares are coming back..."
Such is the difference between the man who has been ground before, and the man who has only ever watched it happen.
Forty minutes of rest. This game, I'll make sure there's no dodging me.
Noh In-seong sidled up to Jeong Im-taek, intending to ask for something.
Perhaps thanks to the crowd being thoroughly cooked in the opener, gaps of empty seats were scattered here and there around the park.
The moment game one ended, the crowd drained out like low tide — and every last one of them made straight for the bathhouses nearby.
"It's too hot, I honestly can't stay!"
"Next game I'll watch on a screen from the cold bath, freezing my tail off if I have to."
No matter how badly they wanted to cheer, this was weather where surviving came first.
"Haha. In heat like this, even the finest players will struggle to go twice, won't they?"
Hope bloomed on the face of the Daejeon manager, who had been planning all along to drain Noh In-seong's stamina by refusing to pitch to him. Two wins and a loss already — everything he'd wanted was in hand. But one more here?
"Not a bad position for locking down fifth place. They've got Changwon next anyway."
"Intentional walk for Noh In-seong this game as well?"
"That's the play... Let's challenge him, first at-bat only."
The first at-bat is practically an open highway anyway — better to challenge than hand out free stolen bases.
"His timing has to be off too. The Suwon boys walked him all series."
The faces of the two men mid-chuckle crumpled the moment they saw the opposing lineup card.
Noh In-seong was hitting third.
"So what are you going to do, when there's a runner standing in front of me?"
Song Jin-wook in the leadoff spot — a fit of historic lunacy, a man so slow a tortoise could plausibly claim him as an old classmate. But under the put-your-strongest-bat-up-top theory of lineup construction, it wasn't a bad call.
Either way, a sufficiently disciplined hitter was stepping in.
The opposing pitcher: the freshly inserted foreign mercenary, Jimmy.
Crack--!!
Then Choon-sik followed by beating out a slow grounder, and suddenly there were runners on first and second.
"Hello there, Sydney!"
The man from Sydney, Australia, who had crossed over from the Pawtucket Red Sox (AAA).
Jimmy Felloni watched the opposing batter step into the box with an expression of pure incredulity.
"You had plenty of fun last game, didn't you? That's over now."
"Agh. I did wonder what these lunatics were scheming."
The friendly exchange with the opposing catcher, Jeong Gu-young, continued.
"...We could put you on right here, you know?"
"Then it's bases loaded and the next batter's up. I'd say that's a minimum of one run, wouldn't you?"
The first pitch was never in question — a changeup diving off the outside corner.
"Oh. So you're not putting me on?"
"You could always pull the pitch back while saying that, no?"
Talk is free, but pull the pitch and what exactly do you accomplish? Catchers — open their mouths and the bullshit just pours out on its own.
Noh In-seong's whole design in sliding himself up the order had been aimed at producing precisely this situation.
With runners aboard in front of him, walking him meant bracing for a much larger expected score. Jo In-soo coming up next would have been perfect — but it hardly mattered who it was.
Even if this very opportunity went up in smoke, the next one arrived with at least a run already built in.
"You held your little intentional-walk festival against me all series long... so I figured it was time I returned the favor."
"...What?"
"I'm saying that from now on, the moment you've got a scoring chance on the table — I'm coming up."
You did watch the Grizzlies series, didn't you?
"You're starting to hate it too, I can tell. So conduct yourselves accordingly."
"...!!!"
His little speech, threats garnish included, ended — and Jimmy delivered his second pitch.
152 km/h. Four-seam.
Perhaps intending to challenge him after all, the ball ran in toward the hands; In-seong watched it through for a ball.
And the next one... that would be a slider.
The bat had already gone out to meet the pitch breaking in toward him — an interception, pure and simple.
CRRAAACK--!!
To the Sydney native bowing his head in defeat, In-seong crowed at full volume.
"Goodbye! Sydney! See you at your next at-bat — don't head down just yet!"
The price of poking Noh In-seong's temper was steep.
Bottom of the fourth, during Daejeon's turn at bat, the chance finally arrived.
Runners on first and second. Nobody out.
"Pitching change!"
Kim Jeong-mook had been pulled after three innings, though his face was fairly bright about it.
Well, no inherited runners for the next guy. Small mercies.
"I told you I'd be the one coming out."
The man taking the ball: Noh In-seong, strolling in from his shortstop position.
"Agh, why does that cursed punk have to come out of all people..."
"Right? Did somebody hold a knife to a throat and order them to poke that lunatic's temper?"
The Daejeon backstop, a six-year veteran, had been needled by this side's first-year rookie.
WHUMP--!!
"Swing — strike three! Batter out!"
The first-year rookie pitcher on the other side of the scoreboard had torn out a strikeout, clean.
Next up, the leadoff man Song Mu-jin nicked a diving slider and bounced into a double play.
Even the chronic ailment of the doubleheader — the pitchers' fading stamina — Noh In-seong solved by himself, appearing twice more before the day was done.
5–0. The Doubles closed out the second game of the doubleheader with a shutout.
Naturally, this was not something Noh In-seong could pull off every single time.
A man who held dominion over the trinity of pitching, hitting, and fielding paid for it in triple the stamina. Unless it was a short war, it was an act he shouldn't so much as attempt.
And pulling it out again in a fit of rage — the side effect of that — stripped away every last reserve he had left.
"Got angry, and forgot about the side effects..."
Why do men die young? Because they do things like this, and then regret them.
On Monday, the league-mandated day off, Noh In-seong reported for work in a completely wrecked condition, full rest or no. Uncharacteristically silent, too drained to even bitch, he skipped strength training in favor of a massage and lying flat.
"...What on earth am I going to do with this deadbeat."
Manager Jeong Im-taek stared at the half-corpse that was his rookie, gnawing on the problem.
His stamina shattered yet again — and the opponent's blatant refusal-to-pitch-to-him spree resuming yet again.
"...Oh? Well, this I can actually thank them for."
With no strength to swing with anyway, being denied the chance to hit felt like staying alive. The opponent's intentional-walk policy was producing results in places no one had anticipated.
Had anyone known the inside story, Changwon might have challenged him after all. They missed the window.
Having split 1–1 with Changwon, Jeong Im-taek pulled In-seong from the finale for the sake of managing his condition.
"You're starting against those punks next series anyway. Just go take care of yourself."
"Whoa! Seriously?!"
The free time was granted on the explicit understanding that he would hole up in his hotel.
"Shall we start with delivery food, then?"
A massage. Good food. A full day of nothing but sleep in his room — and at last, the condition returned.
"Well then. Shall we go hunt ourselves a bear or two?"
"...You absolute lunatic, that sounds like poaching."
Aimed at the bear — the franchise fighting tooth and nail, and desperately, for third place.
Full-condition Noh In-seong revealed himself.