Survival Contest

The Doubles had come through Daejeon and Changwon with a record of 2-2, then 1-2.

Setting Changwon and Daejeon aside, Suwon had no reason to smile at those results.

Zero wins, six losses over the same stretch.

They had lost their main slugger, watched several pitchers go down, and bled momentum while plugging the gaps with second-team players who simply weren't good enough. Throw in the two losses the Doubles had handed them, and the result was an eight-game skid that all but cemented their place in the standings.

Daejeon and Changwon had their share of defeats too, but the gap that had opened up — exactly as many games as they'd won — was no longer something anyone could realistically close.

Even the front office had reached its own internal conclusion — 'We're writing this year off, right?' — so there was nothing left to say.

Because the single greatest force capable of shaking up the league standings wasn't the games teams played against each other.

"It's the moment that damned rock comes rolling into town."

Suwon's manager took a long drag on his cigarette, his face twisted in bitterness.

He had worked so hard, and yet here he was, watching another fall baseball season slip away. It stung.

"...Still, in a way, that's a mercy."

At this point, they'd be rebuilding again next year anyway. Might as well spend his remaining years developing that kid taking swing after swing out there, keep himself occupied, and retire. That would be that.

In one corner of the field the manager watched, cigarette burning down between his fingers—

"Hnngh!"

Whack!

"Your arm's about to fall off! There it is again — your old swing!"

"No, sir!"

On the receiving end of the hitting coach's tirade, Song Hak-joo kept swinging the bat, over and over.

With Suwon eliminated, the fifth-place race had narrowed into a two-team battle with Daejeon holding a slight edge — and that was when one of the two teams already locked in their own two-way fight for third place looked at their next opponent and panicked.

"Are you kidding me? Why do we get three games against those bastards, while Gwangju only gets two?!"

"And that lunatic is actually starting the final game?!"

Watching the Grizzlies — who had already donated a record or two to the cause — trembling with PTSD flashbacks, the Gwangju faithful flooded the internet to poke the bear.

It was the pot calling the kettle shit-covered, but the Gwangju side had a point: 'At least we never got flushed down the sewage treatment plant?'

The bastards who suffered the first in Korean baseball history, the bastards who suffered the first in world history. Compared to that, a no-hitter was practically a mundane record, wasn't it?

Fewer than thirty of them had been thrown by 2051, so really, they should have counted themselves lucky.

For the Gwangju fans who used this as ammunition for their teasing, the bears drawing the first-place team at this particular moment was, admittedly, a gift from heaven.

"Don't get smug. He's pitching the last game against you too. And you've handed him your own records to play with."

Just as the bears said — having themselves slotted into the very final game of the season was genuinely unnerving.

"...Well, that's a problem for future me, isn't it?"

The suffering of one's future self was no concern of one's present self. For Gwangju, the simple joy of having climbed to third place and looking down on the bears came first.

"...These little bastards?"

For a man who despised seeing other teams have fun, this was not a welcome development.

But punishing Gwangju was a matter for the far-flung future.

To put it bluntly — today was the tenth.

"Eighteen. Eighteen days left."

"...Are you cursing, or are you actually counting numbers at me?"

Lim Jae-min, who was standing beside him sizing up the bench press bar — ready to spot him and haul it up if things went sideways — got his answer as Noh In-seong, back in his usual routine, lifted the bar with easy comfort.

"Both, in a sense. I could probably add a little more weight."

"...How the fuck do you have strength left over? I'm dying over here..."

"If you're that bitter, Hyung, try fielding an actual position and playing actual defense. Everyone in the field got to rotate a rest day, didn't they?"

Song Jin-wook, who knew better than anyone that wasn't an option for him, quietly added more plates to the bar beside them.

"That's right — you know yourself best. Keep at it."

"Snrk..."

Such was the sorrow of the designated hitter — the position where your only job between at-bats was remembering to breathe.

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies had to swallow even worse news.

"...So you're telling me they've all come back. En masse."

The Doubles' walking wounded had returned — all at once. The very players who'd sat out their last series were back in uniform.

Caleb's torn fingernail had taken three weeks to grow back, but he'd been granted additional rest on top of that.

"We've already clinched anyway, so no harm in taking our time ramping the condition back up before returning, right?"

"Oh, we can do that? Excellent. Let's aim for a full one hundred percent recovery."

He'd felt a twinge of regret during the double header in Daejeon, but the man had returned to his form from the very start of the season, pristine as new. A relief.

Sung Hyun-tak still couldn't sprint at full tilt like before.

But for a Doubles team sorely lacking in pinch-hitting options, killing a resource this valuable was out of the question. And as it happened, they had Jin Joong-seok, a serviceable pinch runner, sitting right there — so Jung Im-taek bundled the two together like a matched set, muttering that the timing couldn't have been better.

"You'll be coming off the bench as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a pinch hitter until the fall... Did you gain weight?"

"I haven't moved in so long that... it'll come off in no time, sir!"

He needed to shed the flab anyway, so all things considered, this worked out fine.

And for Lim Jae-min, it was news worth celebrating.

"Good work out there."

"Captain! You're back!"

The team captain. The starting catcher. Jo In-soo had returned.

The rookie catcher's month-long odyssey — undertaken while his body wasn't even fully conditioned — had been, in its own way, a success.

"Ugh, I seriously almost died..."

Not tiredness — exhaustion. Not a dull throb — genuine pain.

Looking back on a month of starting catching stuffed with hardship and adversity, Lim Jae-min finally let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Aigo, you fragile little brat. What were you doing all winter if not building your body?"

"Hey, fucker, you're a pitcher — you don't have to squat in full catcher's gear!"

Pitchers are kings, outfielders are aristocrats, infielders are commoners, catchers are beggars.

The beggar Lim Jae-min had absorbed the nonsense of Noh In-seong — king and first citizen of them all.

His body still unconditioned, watching his own backup display defense he couldn't trust an inch — the rookie catcher had been clinging on for dear life, and only now could he finally relax.

"...Well, don't get too comfortable. You'll probably still get starts, since you have to manage In-soo Hyung through the second half."

The manager couldn't very well leave him rotting on the bench, so his breaks would be rationed at best.

"Still, I won't be playing game-game-game like a lunatic anymore, right? I never want to be a starter again for a long, long time."

Lim Jae-min's face flooded with ease, the chronic weariness finally lifting from it.

"Uh... I actually came back a little early, though?"

So Dong-yeop felt a bit wronged. I mean, I came back in two weeks, didn't I?

"And that's exactly why you pitched so often. Ate up a ton of innings, didn't you?"

With so many pitchers prone to losing their heads, he'd been quietly holding the fort behind the scenes — an unsung hero.

While Yeom Dong-goo, Jeon In-soo, and Jin Joo-hyuk took turns eating innings whenever fourth starter Kim Jeong-mook or third starter Jeong In-young ran out of gas, the rotation churners had carried the team through. And on top of that, closer Kim Jin-hong, who'd been nursing nagging minor injuries, was fully recovered too.

"Good. At long last — the complete 2051 Doubles."

The Doubles' midseason crisis was over.

"I suppose we'd better go collect that championship trophy."

After all, the pennant was already in hand.

Now, I wonder — who's going to hand us the trophy to set beneath that flag?

Humming to himself, Jung Im-taek wrote out the day's lineup card.

"Well, these bastards are consistent, I'll give them that."

He'd moved back up to the leadoff spot, but in the end, nothing had changed. He'd get challenged in his first at-bat, then walked intentionally for the next two.

"Noh In-seong draws yet another intentional walk. Nobody out, runners on first and second."

"Honestly, with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a runner already at second, there's really nothing to think about here."

The moment a situation arose that sealed off his base-running threat, the intentional ball came without a flicker of hesitation.

"Challenging that lunatic head-on is the problem in the first place!"

So declared the Grizzlies' manager, utterly unburdened by any pangs of conscience. He'd learned the lesson in the last series: that man was a natural disaster.

"Never mind that we can't burn through many pitchers — his bat alone leaves no answer."

He was a player who could produce more than the average in any run-expectation situation. A head-on duel was out of the question.

The man hadn't taken steroids, yet he was scarier than some coastline American slugger who'd merely licked them.

Besides, his own team was fighting for a playoff spot — there was no room to quibble about cowardice. The strategy was a sound one. Leaving Noh In-seong out of the equation really was the smart play; no hitter in the history of Korean baseball had ever produced runs at anything close to this rate.

If this brilliant scheme had a flaw, it wasn't Noh In-seong. It was the cycle of the other hitters.

CRACK—!!

"A run-scoring single for Song Jin-wook!! Noh In-seong rounds the bags and pulls up at third! The batter-runner stops at first! Base hit!"

"In the intentional-walk series, Song Jin-wook never got to flex — but he looks like a different man today, doesn't he?"

First, Song Jin-wook, timing back in full swing, lashed a run-scoring single.

Crack!

"The left fielder hauls it in right at the wall... and the runner from third trots home! One run on the sacrifice fly!"

Thanks to the cavernous dimensions of Jamsil Dome, it wasn't a home run — but Dustin, no, Chun-sik, drove in the run with a sacrifice fly.

CRACK—!!!

"This ball is sailing! Way out there!! And the team captain, back in the lineup, puts it away! A two-run homer for Jo In-soo!"

"Haha, well, if you compare their batting lines, there's certainly a sizable gap. Lim Jae-min has a bit of growing left to do."

Among catchers, the position where batting averages ran similar or even slightly higher while slugging percentages told a wildly different story, Jo In-soo emerged as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning and greedily scraped up the last remaining runner as well — four runs in total.

"...This isn't... right..."

It was firepower on a completely different scale from the days when the injured list was stuffed to bursting.

The intentional walk was only ever useful as a tool 'excluding that one man' — valid solely when the other hitters couldn't hit. Handing out free baserunners to a lineup swarming with slugs once more was utterly meaningless.

"You expect me to keep taking this day after day? How long do you think we'll keep falling for the same pattern?"

Jung Im-taek moved to finish things off right there.

Top of the eighth. The rally began with the number-eight hitter.

"Snrk..!!"

In that situation, Song Joo-in got plunked by a pitch that slipped, and took his free pass to first.

With leadoff hitter Noh In-seong due up, a pinch hitter was summoned for the number-nine spot.

"Pinch hitter! Sung Hyun-tak!"

Carrying some added weight, Sung Hyun-tak stepped in gripping a slightly heavier bat.

"And here's Sung Hyun-tak... his first plate appearance since the hamstring injury, isn't it?"

"He's had a long layoff. Hard to say how sharp he'll be."

Thwack—!!

"Strike one, swinging!"

"A big hack at the first pitch."

"Swinging for the fences on pitch one — how long have you even been back? And why'd the weight pile on like that?"

"It's bulking, isn't it. Bulking."

Jeong Han-sol, one of the less hot-headed Grizzlies, offered a curt greeting in place of pleasantries — and Sung Hyun-tak flashed a shit-eating grin right back.

Another swing and a miss, this time at a curveball.

As the fans in the stands, the fans watching from home, and his own teammates all worried over Sung Hyun-tak's condition, one man couldn't have cared less.

'...Is that from the rest, or from the extra weight...?'

It felt to him as though the bat was coming around with just a bit more force than before.

Maybe Sung Hyun-tak gaining weight was simply his body finally finding its way back to where it belonged.

CRACK—!!

"This ball is driven to right!! It clears the wall by a whisker — HOME RUN! Another two-run shot!"

"That same contact used to die as a double! Is this what bulking up gets you?!"

"Yeeeee-HAW!"

Flipping the bat away and setting off on his leisurely trot, Sung Hyun-tak came strutting over to Noh In-seong to brag.

"A homer in my first at-bat back! You see that? You could never pull that off!"

Snorting at the yapping brat's nonsense, Noh In-seong ambled toward the plate.

"Funny — thanks to you, I think I can manage something."

No runners aboard, and the score gap was huge anyway. He'd come in looking for a pitch to hit.

"By the way — if I hit a homer here, your ass is getting absolutely demolished. Commit that to memory."

"......"

"Really, why would you even challenge me to something like this."

Having yapped his way into a bet with no upside, Sung Hyun-tak slunk back to the dugout with a mournful face.

Option one: send him out without a pitch to hit, and let Noh In-seong torment the pitcher's psyche until it shattered. Option two: challenge him head-on.

"......God, I really do hate you..."

Walking the moonwalk between second and home, slowing to a crawl at first, tapping the very edge of the bag and stretching the trot as long as humanly possible — the victim of every nerve-grating antic imaginable, Jeong Han-sol swallowed his tears and went at him head-on.

CRACK—!!!

"BACK-TO-BACK! A back-to-back home run! And it really is within reach now! A solo shot for Noh In-seong!"

"That ties him for second all-time! Noh In-seong reaches 146 RBIs on the season!"

Beaten black and blue, the Grizzlies watched Noh In-seong draw one step closer to the all-time RBI record yet again.

Four more to tie, five to break it.

Having collected nothing but intentional walks through the entire Changwon series, this was his first RBI in a full five days.

Noh In-seong stopped tracking the ball's flight, and hurled his bat high into the sky.

And so the game ended, as lopsided and one-sided a beatdown as you'll ever see.

9-4. One side's starter couldn't survive; the other side had So Dong-yeop eat every remaining inning by himself.

"Whew, I threw enough today that my arm's actually a little sore."

"...Your arm isn't secretly a machine, is it? Did cyberpunk already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠get here?"

After tossing four innings and claiming his arm had only just started to ache, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠So Dong-yeop slathered on the pain-relief patches.

"At this rate, if we don't snap out of it, we're genuinely sliding to fourth..."

While the Grizzlies camp spiraled into desperation, Gwangju seemed poised to laugh it up — except.

"...Hold on. We play those guys in the last series of the season, don't we."

"If it's within two games, they could flip the standings on us, couldn't they?!"

Turns out they, too, had been forced to face reality — all while the battle for third between two pride-swollen pretenders raged ever more fiercely.

And amid it all, witnesses reported that a very strange sound had echoed exactly once from the Doubles dugout that day.

THWACK—!!

"GWAAAHH...!! Damn it! What the hell IS this kick...!! The pain just won't go away...!!"

"You will not be making bets with me again. You got card-kicked last time — what on earth possessed you to bet against me twice?"

Naturally, it was a gesture of affectionate encouragement toward a senior teammate who'd gotten fresh with him.

Thus concludes the tale of the Doubles' first victory in the series against the Grizzlies.