Rising Star (Part 2)
There was this really gorgeous young woman who showed up to every single second-team game, right? After a game, while taking a photo together, she asked if she could link arms with him, and he turned her down saying he already has a kid lol.
Crack!
Crack!
Every player on the active roster had arrived, and pre-game batting practice was in full swing. Choi Kanghyuk seemed noticeably stunned to find his name written into the starting lineup.
"Why am I in the starting nine...?" he muttered, blinking at the dugout board.
"Your hitting tools are genuinely solid, hyung," I said, leaning on my bat. "It's just that your defense is a lost cause."
"Hey, Seonghyun-ah. Come on, 'lost cause' is a bit harsh, don't you think?"
"Would you prefer I cue up your second-team fielding blooper reel on the tablet?"
"Whoa, whoa, Seonghyun-ah," Chae Gihyun intervened with a weary chuckle. "Give Kanghyuk a break already..."
As had become routine, the three developmental contract walk-ons stuck close together. Meanwhile, Cha Sehoon was already busy catching bullpen sessions from the first-team arms after his sudden call-up following military discharge. The sky overhead was clear and mild—terrific weather for baseball.
"Did you put together a game plan for Smith today, hyung?" I asked.
"...I'm counting on you for that," Kanghyuk murmured sheepishly.
"Haah. Kanghyuk-hyung, I can't keep feeding you the answers forever. What're you going to do when I leave for the majors?"
"Look, even when I study on my own, the second I step into the batter's box, everything flies straight out of my head..."
"Good grief. Listen closely. He's an exceptionally aggressive pitcher whose first-pitch strike rate sits well over eighty percent. Against left-handed batters, his first-pitch mix breaks down to about thirty percent four-seam fastballs, thirty percent two-seamers, twenty percent one-seamers, and twenty percent sweepers. Tricky split, right?"
"So... should I swing on the first pitch or take it?"
"Can you handle his kick changeup?"
"No way. I faced it on the Traject Arc, and I couldn't touch it to save my life..."
"Then you have to hunt the first pitch aggressively. Four-seam, two-seam, one-seam—they're all fastball variations. As long as your timing is on point, you can punch it through the infield."
"Where should I look for the ball?"
"Against lefties, he usually starts them away on the outer half."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Kanghyuk-hyung had spent nearly our entire tenure in the second team glued to my hip. He seemed endlessly impressed watching me map out at-bats using sabermetrics, but he was strictly the type who needed a distilled cheat sheet right before game time to actually execute it on the field.
"Hey, nephew. What're you two whispering about so seriously?"
A familiar voice broke in. I turned to find the veteran slugger approaching.
"Ah, Jaehoon-hyung. We were talking about how to approach Smith today."
"Is that right? Let me hear some of that, too."
"Against you, hyung-nim, he'll most likely test you away with an outside sweeper on the first pitch. He's usually a strike-thrower early, but against the heart of the order—especially middle-of-the-order extra-base threats—his first-pitch fastball rate plummets. He prefers baiting you with the sweeping slider."
"...How on earth do you keep all those numbers crammed in your skull?"
"If you want to earn a living playing baseball, shouldn't this be the bare minimum?"
"Man, I just see the ball and hit the ball..." Jaehoon said, scratching his temple with an abashed grin.
"Just my personal style, I suppose."
Of course, after talking this big, going 0-for-3 or 0-for-4 would be profoundly embarrassing.
My phone vibrated in my pocket with a brief chime.
I swept my eyes across the grandstands of Sajik Baseball Stadium. Family tickets usually came with prime seating, and the very best view in the house was directly behind home plate. Sure enough, there she was. Catching sight of Eunha, I raised a hand and gave a small wave.
My father-in-law and mother-in-law sat beside my parents, while Harin sat with Eunha at a adjoining table. All six of them were settled comfortably, paired off by twos. With gametime creeping up fast, our pre-game window was almost shut.
"I really missed you, Yoo," Lucas groaned, trudging over and leaning against the rail. "My bad for whining before. Don't go to the Phillies just yet. Stay right here with me."
"Feel free to give up a couple of runs today," I replied dryly. "I'll make sure you get plenty of run support."
"Damn it, I love you, man."
"Not in that way, I hope. I've already got a kid on the way."
"What? You've got a kid?"
"Yeah. See over there? That's my wife. You can't tell from this far away, but she's already twenty weeks along."
"What...?" Lucas's jaw dropped slack.
I brushed off his baffled stammering as warmups wrapped up. Time to get down to business.
The national anthem echoed over the stadium speakers, followed by the ceremonial first pitch. As the clock struck six, the umpires took their positions.
Top of the first inning, Gwangju Rangers batting.
'Park Hyunseok. Left-handed hitter. High tendency to spray hits the other way, elite foot speed. Strong likelihood of pulling hard-hit grounders toward third base.'
'Lucas's arsenal: four-seam, cutter, slider, splitter, curveball.'
The synthetic voice crackled crisp and clear through the PitchCom receiver tucked into my ear. Aside from the pitcher and catcher, up to three fielders were permitted to wear the devices, and on our squad, they belonged to the second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman.
A four-seamer, low and away, designed to clip the edge. If it were a cutter bearing in on a left-hander's hands, an opposite-field poke might only reach the shortstop at best, but against an outside four-seamer, the ball had a massive probability of screaming straight toward my territory.
'Most of Park Hyunseok's extra-base hits are line drives. Which means...'
Our shortstop, Choi Junhyung, caught the transmission and subtly shifted his defensive depth a few paces closer to the third-base hole. The kid clearly had sharp baseball instincts. Even with shift restrictions in place, fielders still needed that level of spatial awareness.
Smack!
"Strike!"
"Whew—!"
Lucas's four-seamer ripped straight through the lower outside corner of the zone for a pristine strike one. The scoreboard flashed the velocity readout: Four-seam, 154 km/h, 2,300 RPM.
He was an imposing physical pitcher without question. While plenty of bullpen arms in the KBO could touch the mid-150s, true starting pitchers who could pump ninety-six miles per hour on demand were a rare breed. But after taking the return throw, Lucas shook his head repeatedly.
What's his problem? Doesn't like the sequence?
Eventually, Lucas nodded in agreement, and the audio feed chimed again.
Perhaps Lucas had doubted the wisdom of burying a splitter right after getting ahead. Still, working through a starter's repertoire early to gauge the sharpness of every pitch wasn't a terrible idea, especially after banking an easy strike one.
"Hoo—!"
Lucas drove through his windup with violent intent and unleashed. Ah, he missed his spot. The splitter hung flat, tumbling helplessly straight down the pipe into the dead center of the strike zone. Dangerously hittable.
Thwack.
"Strike two!"
Miraculously, the batter kept the bat glued to his shoulder, freezing solid as the count tumbled to 0-2. Park Hyunseok immediately stepped out with a grimace of deep regret, signaling for time. The count belonged entirely to the pitcher now. In my book, a hitter's single most vital virtue is punishing missed pitches.
Having let a grooved meatball sail harmlessly past, the batter had surrendered control of the at-bat. Now it was the pitcher's playground, and anything was fair game. If it were up to me, I'd either yank his timing with a looping curve or blow a high fastball right past his eyes.
A brilliant call. The catcher fresh off military duty evidently possessed plenty of baseball IQ.
Right after watching a hanging middle-middle splitter go by, what would a slightly dialed-back high fastball look like to the hitter?
To his eyes, wouldn't it mirror that exact same middle-cut splitter right up until it rose?
Whoosh!
The bat cut clean through empty air with the furious rush of a ceiling fan, and the plate umpire thrust a clenched fist skyward.
"Strike three, batter out!"
"Yes!"
Without breaking into an overt display, Lucas let out a guttural shout of triumph. His arm looked loose, and his stuff had plenty of life today. An auspicious start.