President's Cup Final, Part 3
The broadcast booth had the replay of Choi Seungtaek's home run looping on the monitor.
The color commentator, in particular, had been studying the chess match between Go Tae-san and Choi Seungtaek with rapt attention.
Euphoria. Choi Seungtaek could still feel that heat. Time had passed since he'd rounded the bases, but his heart was still on fire, his whole body still burning.
And yet the game refused to feel like Suseok High had the upper hand. Go Tae-san had given up a home run, but he hadn't flinched. He'd punched out Suseok's two, three, and four hitters on three pitches apiece.
Kim Minjae, watching Go Tae-san's stuff turn terrifying all over again, couldn't help himself.
"Whoa, Seungtaek, how the hell did you hit that pitch out?"
"Results of hard work."
If he was honest, Choi Seungtaek felt a little cheap about it. He was the only one who knew the opponent's weakness. But there was no other way. Broadcast Go Tae-san's tell to everyone, and someone would leak it. Go Tae-san would patch the hole, and then they couldn't win. Even telling one or two people was a risk — the moment it showed on the field, Go Tae-san would know.
After a little time, the blood that had been racing through him settled back to a simmer, and Choi Seungtaek strapped on his catcher's gear once more.
The atmosphere in the Buma High dugout was foul. It was usually a bright, loud place, but Go Tae-san giving up a home run had dropped a sheet of thin ice over everything.
"Go Tae-san! If you weren't feeling it today, you should've said something!"
The Buma High coach couldn't really tear into him for the homer, so he came at it sideways.
"I feel good today."
"What?"
"I said I feel good today."
Go Tae-san answered the question with a flat, unadorned calm.
"I feel good today. Choi Seungtaek just hit a home run anyway."
He acknowledged Choi Seungtaek, plain and simple.
"He's good. Fucking good."
The Buma High coach nearly slipped into the old habit of chewing out the rest of the roster, but one look at Go Tae-san's eyes and the words died in his throat. The boy's voice had been mild. His eyes were burning.
"Yeah. You're the one who's more pissed about it. Let's do this right the rest of the way."
"Yes, Coach!"
Go Tae-san quietly started loosening his shoulders again.
He got me. That's done. From here on out, I do this right.
"You've been winning even when you weren't at your best, thanks to Tae-san. But today you have to put up at least two runs. You're not going to tell me you can't do that against a second-year pitcher, are you?"
"We can do it!"
The Buma High coach fired his players up. Over in the Suseok High dugout, Kim Ik-hyun was doing the same before his team took the field.
"This is the chance we've been waiting for. Choi Seungtaek got us that one run, just like we planned. Now all we have to do is hold it. Lock in on defense and don't give them a single run. Understood?"
"Yes, Coach!"
Suseok High's players pulled the energy back up and jogged out onto the diamond.
A hiss of air. A pop in the mitt.
Strike! Out! Sides retired!
The innings turned over, one after another. A hiss of air. A pop in the mitt. Strike! Out! Both teams' hitters came and went, and not a single one of them reached first base.
It was Suseok High's turn to hit, but every eye in the park was on Go Tae-san. The fastball he'd just punched someone out with had lit up the board at 161 km/h, and even though Suseok High was the team in front, he was the one drawing the spotlight.
From the moment he'd given up that home run, Go Tae-san had started throwing like a man with a point to prove. He'd been sitting in the high 150s and touching 160 ever since. Facing a fastball like that was already more than most high school hitters could handle — and he was mixing in breaking balls without fail, so the bats kept chasing sliders and the hitters kept trotting back to the dugout with nothing but strikeouts to show for it.
The shift in Go Tae-san forced Choi Seungtaek to revise the plan earlier than he'd wanted. If they'd had breathing room, he would have tried to throw Lee San a little of the spotlight. Now they had to be ruthlessly pragmatic.
Circle Changeup
Location: Down and in
A hiss of air. Weak contact — a lazy tap.
Choi Seungtaek kept calling pitches down in the zone, balls the hitter could still reach, designed to produce nothing but weak contact. Lee San's approach shifted from punching guys out to inducing easy outs.
This is how we ride Lee San through the ninth.
The adjustment was possible because the Buma High hitters were swinging at everything. Choi Seungtaek could feel it — they'd been told to attack. They needed to score, so they were hunting pitches instead of waiting.
He let out a long breath. Sides changed again, and Choi Seungtaek came back to the dugout.
"Seungtaek, how are we supposed to attack that stuff?"
"Attack it? I sat on the fastball. That's it."
"Just the fastball?"
"And if you square it up and get lucky, it goes. Otherwise you strike out like the rest of you. But even I can't hit what he's throwing right now."
Go Tae-san's stuff had gotten so vicious that the hitters kept coming to Choi Seungtaek for answers, and he had none to give. The kid was throwing 160-plus, the kind of fastball you were supposed to see in the majors, and there was no trick for that. Those insane heaters were filling up the strike zone, pitch after pitch, and just like the slider before them, they were a pitch outside the spec. Choi Seungtaek had no tip that would help.
Bottom of the third, two outs. Choi Seungtaek stepped in again.
The plan he'd laid out from the start had worked. He'd taken a minimum of three plate appearances and stretched it to four on his own, and he'd gone deep in the first one. From here, the game wasn't about offense. It was about defense. Hold the one run he'd earned, and they would win. That didn't mean he was giving the at-bat away. Add another run in a game this tight, and a one-run lead started to feel like a canyon. You also wanted the cushion, just in case something went wrong.
A hiss of air. A heavy pop in the mitt.
Strike!
Wow… when he actually bears down, there's no answer. So this is Major League stuff. How are you supposed to hit this?
The System was feeding him information, and he still couldn't pull the trigger. The board flashed 161 km/h. He'd taken the pitch just to feel it fully, and it was like walking into a wall he hadn't known was there.
A hiss of air. The crack of the bat.
"Wait— wait??"
"Is it going out again?!"
The velocity was up. The location was the same. Choi Seungtaek had gotten the fastball he was hunting.
"Aigoo…"
The ball had seemed to keep climbing, keep carrying, and then it died at the end and dropped. Center field. Fly out.
Tsk.
Go Tae-san was close to untouchable. Even a swing that good lost the battle of raw power. All it got him was a fly ball.
Choi Seungtaek started back toward the dugout, and this time Ha Seung-yoon was the one throwing the first punch.
"Not so easy now, is it?"
"I'll be back. Count on it. I've got the feel now. I know the timing."
He couldn't afford to lose the war of momentum, so he threw it right back.
"I just have to take you deep next at-bat, right? And aren't you the ones who actually need to hit? We're the ones winning. Doesn't look so easy from your side, huh? Heh."
Ha Seung-yoon had thrown a punch and eaten a haymaker. He'd already been miserable at the plate — the pitch he hated most, up and away, kept showing up, and every at-bat had ended in an out — and now he'd taken damage with words on top of it. His head actually hurt.
Lay off that high-and-away offering, and a fastball filled the zone for a strikeout. Swing at it, and it turned into a breaking ball off the bottom of the bat for weak contact. He was losing the chess match every single time, and it was eating him alive.
Damn it. How the hell does that guy do it?
More innings bled away. Bottom of the sixth, two outs. Choi Seungtaek's third trip to the plate.
A long hiss of air. A pop in the mitt.
Strikeout!
A razor of a slider caught the outside edge of the zone. Choi Seungtaek had been laying off the breaking balls — and he went down looking.
The moment Choi Seungtaek struck out, Ha Seung-yoon looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Thought you had the feel? Didn't do a damn thing, did you?"
Hah…
It needled him, a little, but Choi Seungtaek went back to the dugout anyway. The game had been flowing without any real trouble. Play defense, hold the lead, go home. That was the thinking — until the top of the eighth arrived and brought a problem with it.
"Huff… huff…"
A nod.
A long hiss of air. The crack of the bat.
Hah… I thought we were going to cruise.
And then it was the bottom of the ninth, two outs, and Choi Seungtaek's turn came around again. An at-bat that only existed because of the home run he'd hit in the first.
◈ Pitches: Four-seam fastball, curveball, slider
◈ Preferred: Four-seam fastball
The ninth inning had taken the velocity off Go Tae-san's fastball. The board was showing the mid-150s now — back down into a range Choi Seungtaek could actually hunt.
And in the Buma High dugout, someone had read the same shift in the current. The sign came out to pitch around Choi Seungtaek. Keep walking him, the calculation went, and they could still win this.
Go Tae-san shook it off.
He wanted Choi Seungtaek.
He let out a long breath.
A hiss of air. A heavy pop in the mitt.
Strike!
He's definitely weaker. And he's still coming after me?
Choi Seungtaek looked out at Go Tae-san. The pitcher wasn't showing a thing. And there, standing out along the back of his hand again, were the tendons.
Doesn't have the strength to throw anything else.
Sometimes the fastball became the easiest pitch there was. When you were exhausted.
Choi Seungtaek set himself the way Baek Horyeong had — ready to feast on a tired pitcher.
Go Tae-san went into his windup. The trajectory of the pitch he'd thrown more than any other, the one he trusted most, drew itself across Choi Seungtaek's vision.
A long hiss of air. The crack of the bat.
Ah—
The sensation they said you could feel in your hands when you hit a home run. An electric, nameless jolt running through his fingers.
Choi Seungtaek didn't even track the ball. Both arms thrust toward the sky.