The Sacrifice (Part 2)

Even the most oblivious man alive knew exactly what kind of condition Noh In-seong was in today.

And for the Phoenix hitters, who had watched it unfold right in front of their eyes, it was enough to send their blood pressure through the roof.

"That lunatic... a rookie, and he's pitching dirtier than half the grizzled old veterans in the league."

For starters, there was the problem of his form.

"His mechanics haven't changed. Not once. Normally a guy's delivery breaks down little by little as he tires out, but..."

Noh In-seong either had no tells at all, or if he did, they were invisible to anyone whose eyesight wasn't sharp enough to catch it from the batter's box.

When a pitcher fatigues, his arm slot tends to drop — and plenty of hitters had learned to key on that, waiting for a particular pitch precisely because the release point sat a little lower.

Shortstop, a position that shreds your stamina. Reckless baserunning to go with it. Stolen bases as casually as eating breakfast.

And on top of all that, flashy celebration ceremonies, punches thrown as freely as curses exchanged.

Stamina, mental fortitude, and crushing stress, all three at once — a perfect storm.

Of course, the opposing team got buried under the same avalanche of stress, which meant four layers of exhaustion in total, living inside the storm and playing baseball the hard way.

And since taking the mound devoured his energy in a dozen other ways too, it was no wonder he'd been getting hit around a bit lately.

But not today. Today he'd abandoned it all — hitting, running, everything.

Granted, in his first at-bat he'd tried to do something, had actually taken a swing at a ball.

He struck out watching an outside slider so far off the plate that even the ABS would have shouted, Whoa, he's swinging at THAT? An absolutely unhinged golf shot.

But from his second at-bat on, he simply watched three pitches and walked back to the dugout.

Noh In-seong had figured it out between at-bats. There was no need to spend energy on offense today.

'Today's me can put the ball exactly where I want. When I want. At the angle I want.'

Granted, not every pitch went in quite as 'Noh In-seong all-mighty' as that.

The one he threw the most — the pitch, apparently, that loved him back the most.

Like the puppy he'd seen on his way to the park this morning, it had been begging to be petted firmly with two fingers.

"...Swing, strikeout!"

"ARGH!!"

Daejeon Phoenix left fielder Cho Gyu-cheol snapped his bat in half in fury at the slider that broke sharply in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on his hands.

But what really made his blood boil was the setup pitch before it. It was the appetizer that stung.

The pitches were parked in the strike zone like polka dots, but the trajectory of the kill pitch was a different animal entirely.

The kill pitch was a slider — one that came in practically glued to his hip, and he swung at it for a strikeout.

And those tightly clustered pitches, as if he were zeroing in a rifle? Every last one of them was a four-seam fastball.

The four-seamer, the most-thrown pitch in all of baseball, had spent today begging Noh In-seong to play with it.

"...So that's what that puppy this morning meant."

Turned out it had been saying, Stock up on your stats, go out there and KILL it!

Reading tea leaves, sure — but the placebo effect that settled his mind was undeniable.

A baseball player's superstitions, after all, had always been an ethereal sort of thing.

And so the game clock kept ticking on.

Korean baseball was a little different from other leagues — when a major record was in progress, the ballpark didn't exactly go quiet.

Rarely did it stiffen up like that, and rarely were people sitting on things they wanted to say.

But here, the players seated in the Doubles dugout stayed silent, breathing only with permission.

The reason was simple.

'The guy who ran his mouth a little while back got pantsed by his direct senior the moment the guy was discharged from the army, then shipped off in a trade...'

'If I'm being loud and this record happens to break right then? My face breaks with it.'

Those who weren't close to Noh In-seong trembled in fear.

'Stay quiet. I have to help that guy recover even an ounce of stamina.'

'Man, he's taking in way more data than he usually does — I think my head's about to crack open.'

Those who were even slightly close to him stayed quiet to be of some use to that infuriating mutt of a man.

'If I said I wanted to play defense right now, I feel like the manager would launch a joint at my head instantly.'

Granted, the ones who were actually close to him were busy having deranged thoughts while they sat there.

But since this lunatic had held the opposition to three runs over seven innings entirely on his own, even getting caught today wouldn't have earned him a beating from the manager.

The man himself, meanwhile, was thinking 'You defense-begging little psycho...!!' while his backside ground itself into dust.

Top of the eighth.

Noh In-seong's pitch limit was set at 100 — and he was already at 99.

By the letter of the rules, he should have been pulled from the game already.

"Alright, everyone lock down the defense this inning too, and call it clean."

"One, two, three, FIGHTING!"

The manager, the front office, and even the player himself — the same player who normally insisted on avoiding unnecessary pitches at all costs.

Nobody had any intention of pulling him, and he had no intention of coming out.

The Daejeon Phoenix players were keeping their silence in the dugout too.

Though certainly not out of fear of Noh In-seong, or consideration for him, or any such thoughtful reflection.

"...Ah, if it ends like this..."

Jung In-woong, the most senior man on the roster, simply clutched his head and spoke with a sob in his voice.

And understandably so — the situation was grim from every angle.

First, let's grant that 'that record' hadn't been achieved yet.

Losing today meant their winning percentage would tumble into the same neighborhood as the two already-ruined teams, Incheon and the Superstars.

Worse, they'd be falling there at the hands of that cursed little weasel — the same one who'd repaid the fans' gratitude with a slick tongue and a slap in the face.

It wasn't that Daejeon people didn't get angry.

By the time they did, the other party was already dead, so the anger never got heard.

And if — just if — their luck was dirty enough to hand over the record too?

"If we don't want to end up like Busan, we've gotta clear him out, and fast..."

Their top three hitters by average had long since been retired.

And cleanup, kept in the lineup purely on the prayer that his slugging percentage might produce one big swing...

"Swing, strike three — batter out!"

...had fallen as the fifteenth sacrificial lamb.

And with that, even a record nobody had been consciously tracking came into view.

Their own legendary record: seventeen strikeouts in a single game.

It would've been kinder if the corpse had just stayed dead — but here they came, willingly walking into the fire to burn their own corpse.

"Time! Pinch hitter! Song Mu-jin!"

The Phoenix, not ready to burn to death, sent up a pinch hitter in place of the five-hole hitter who hadn't touched a bat with the ball once all day.

"...Ah, I know this type."

His shoulder was starting to throb, his arm refusing to turn over — but his head was still fresh and spinning like a top.

A pinch hitter. Couldn't remember the name.

With that wiry, stringy build, he was one of two things.

A guy who hits for a tremendous average but has zero power tools.

In which case it would be bizarre for Phoenix not to start him — their own left fielder couldn't even crack .300.

Which left exactly one possibility.

...I made a living off a similar toolset once, myself.

In-seong hyung fired off a rapid-fire barrage of sliders through the PitchCom.

Squaring around for the bunt and leaning his body toward third base in advance to push one down the line — that was the poison.

He scrambled to pull out of the bunt stance, but the ball had arrived long ago.

It struck both the hand gripping the knob and the handle itself, turning the play into a live ball.

If it had at least rolled foul, they could have pulled him from the game — but of all places, it came dribbling straight toward the mound.

Had he stood in his normal stance, it probably would have been a ball sailing in on his hands.

Greedy for a base hit, he'd lost both his at-bat and his health in one stroke.

"You little bastards, is this a joke to you...!!"

There was an unwritten rule: no bunting while a record was in progress.

In-seong hyung was yelling, the whole bench was yelling — but this wasn't the time for that.

"Everybody shut up and get back to your positions!"

The record was still live, and with only four chances remaining for them, there was no reason to waste time.

With their heads spinning like this, the faster he piled the pressure on, the better.

First pitch, in on the hands. Four-seam.

"Strike!"

Second pitch, outside. Curveball.

"Swing, strike!"

One slider buried outside. And for the last pitch... yes. Four-seam.

"Strike three! Batter out!"

110 pitches. Sixteen strikeouts. Noh In-seong walked off the mound after finishing the eighth, wiping sweat from his face with a grim expression.

The record was still in progress.

Pulling a shameless stunt like bunting against a historic record earns you a savage beating the first time.

Do it a second time, and something far worse tends to happen.

From the Phoenix's perspective, the ones being victimized by the record, they'd be begging, Please, just give us a second chance!

But throwing out a 'we're just playing our hardest!' line after a botched bunt — a second one, at that, in such a desperate spot?

Considering this was Jamsil, the Doubles' home field, the team bus might actually catch fire.

And so Noh In-seong didn't spend a single thought worrying about bunts in the ninth.

"Ugh..."

Truthfully, the only thing that really mattered now was managing his own body.

He was a pitcher who had never fired on all cylinders like this before, and never thrown this long.

High school? Please. Outside of tournament finals, he'd never thrown nine full innings in his life.

He'd won nearly every game of his career by mercy rule.

"Hnn... hoo... hnn... hoo..."

He strained to stretch out every breath, trying to gather what energy remained.

"...Tch. Really, I'm sorry. I guess they were desperate too."

Because the bottom of the eighth had been brutally short.

The opposing team had rushed in their closer, stealing away Noh In-seong's rest window.

"...At least my shoulder hasn't gone cold. Small mercies, sheesh."

The all-too-brief regrouping over, Noh In-seong stepped back onto the mound — the executioner's platform.

Either he claimed the glory no single pitcher in this country's professional history had ever touched.

"Now it really does come down to luck."

Or he walked the same road as every challenger before him — men who had dared, only to burn to death under the sun called Greatness.

The final inning was drawing near.

A foreign mercenary pitcher had done it exactly once — pitching a perfect nine innings.

But that was after the game had gone to extra innings and he'd been pulled, retroactively christened a 'perfect game' — not the record I was chasing right now.

The essential condition of this record, whether it took nine innings, ten, or even eleven that ended in a tie, was this:

'From the moment the winning condition is met on the mound, not a single batter reaches base until the game ends.'

Until the final out, this record would not be achieved.

On the mound, he fired his hardest fastball of the day to open the inning.

CRACK—!!

His strength had drained considerably.

The first pitch clocked in at 155 km/h. He'd thrown his hardest pitch of the day, and it had still lost that much off the radar gun.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

No — no reason to panic.

Back in the day, with a weaker body, one more fragile and injury-prone than this one, how many games had he pitched through?

Compared to those days, even this dead-tired body was a blessing.

He punched the PitchCom while shaking his head side to side.

No. He was just shaking his head. To plant the tiniest seed of doubt.

In-seong hyung's call for a four-seam went through as planned. He'd pressed the four-seam button too, after all.

"Strike!"

He buried a two-seamer outside next, but it didn't finish its dive, slicing foul toward the third-base side.

It felt like a little of his remaining life had drained away, but at least he'd forced the count into his favor.

And for the last one — this was always the man for moments like this.

A pitch that climbed toward the head, then dropped away with a snap.

"Swing, strike three! Batter out!"

"...Pinch hitter! Joo Seong-cheol!"

Ever since the Phoenix had brought in their pinch hitter, I hadn't called for a single sign myself.

Too tired to think straight — or maybe just pouring every last ounce of focus into command.

'...Fo...'

He threw to where the glove had first set up, matching the word that came through in fragments.

"Swing, strike one!"

'Two-seam, two-seam, two-seam...'

The sign said two-seam, so he threw one — and it went completely opposite, forcing In-seong hyung into a scrambling stop at the dirt.

Whether the ABS would have graded it a strike or not, it was strike two.

The last pitch had to be this one, right? And look, the sign even called for a four-seam.

Take care of the rest for me, buddy.

Graceful. Unhurried.

A 105 km/h fastball with nothing on it whatsoever drifted past the veteran pinch hitter like a taunt, teasing him all the way through the zone.

"Strike three! Batter out! Ballgame!"

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ignored entirely the hollow, haunted look Joo Seong-cheol gave the mound.

"AAAAAAARGH—!"

And Noh In-seong screamed at the top of his lungs from the top of the mound.

Like a man finally setting down something he'd been carrying his whole life.

With a face washed clean of weight, he let his voice tear loose into the night.