Adjusting to the Team

"Alright, Yi-seon, good work out there. Go inside and get some rest."

That was the first thing the manager said to me, greeting me with a beaming smile as I came down after pitching through the sixth.

"Already, sir?"

"Already? Nonsense. A starter who's gone six innings has done his job."

He wasn't wrong, exactly, but I'd only thrown a little over seventy pitches. And the opposing hitters' form tonight was nothing to sneeze at. I'd gotten through it scoreless because I was pitching well — one slip and this could have turned into a blowout.

I'd been genuinely startled watching senior Yoo Kang-hyun, swinging way under the ball and then chasing down a high fastball anyway to fight it off for a flyout. On the national team, the guy had looked like any ordinary middle-aged uncle.

But the manager just chuckled and said, with evident pride:

"From here on, trust your seniors. The whole win-setup corps is going today, so don't you worry about a thing."

Hm...

Riley Harrison spun a gem, giving up just one run over seven innings and wrapping up his Korean debut in clean fashion. As the first turn of the rotation after Opening Day, plenty of factors had gone into the assignment — his current condition, the symbolism of it — but whatever the reasoning, Riley Harrison was our number four starter.

When starters face off in a back-of-the-rotation duel like this, the ordinary shape of baseball is that the team whose starter pitches this well walks away with the win.

But we were behind. Daniel Walker, the Mariners' new foreign slugger, stepped into the box as the leadoff hitter of the seventh, taking a moment to steady his breathing.

The Korean pitchers I faced last series had slower stuff than the big leagues, sure, but they each had a trick or two of their own.

But the starter we drew today wasn't a "has a trick" kind of guy — he was a maniac throwing big-league-bullpen-grade velocity out of the number four slot. A different arm finally took the mound in the seventh, but seriously, what kind of team has a guy like that?

Still, he's gone now. If that monster's out of the game, then this is the moment to repay our own starter's effort.

The arm on the mound was Park Ha-neul. According to the scouting material, he was a classic two-pitch bullpen arm.

Four-seam and a Vulcan changeup. A tricky combination to face for a single at-bat — but for a guy like Daniel, who swings big and hunts home runs, it's actually a favorable matchup. Both are pitches that carry well when you barre them up.

He gripped the bat tight and settled into the box. A light roll of the shoulders, and the moment his focus locked onto the pitcher —

The delivery looked slightly awkward, the same one he'd seen in the scouting video, and then the ball left the pitcher's hand.

Feels like a fastball. Up in the zone, but drifted a bit toward the middle. Even if it turned out to be the changeup, it'd still be inside the zone.

No reason to hesitate on the first pitch. Swing.

"Striiiike!"

"First pitch swung on — and it's a diving pitch, swinging strike!"

"Daniel goes after it with total confidence. Love to see it. Isn't that exactly what you want from your import sluggers? For home-run hitters like him, whiffs and strikeouts are just the tax you pay."

"No balls, one strike. Park Ha-neul starts the at-bat in a favorable count."

And then the bat sliced clean through empty air.

A curveball? Or a spiked slider? It looked like a four-seam the whole way. Even if the changeup is a split-change, can it really drop that much?

The pitch had fallen to a spot that nearly scraped the dirt. Daniel stared back at the opposing pitcher, dumbfounded. The man wore the expression of someone who'd done absolutely nothing special.

First a monster, now a weirdo. Great.

Daniel swallowed a sigh and gripped the bat tight once more.

"Well? Starting to trust us yet?"

Senior Ji Ha-seob asked me with a proud, self-satisfied grin, and I nodded like it went without saying.

"Of course. I always trusted you."

"Funny thing for a guy who said he wanted to keep throwing."

He was clearly joking by the look on his face, but from the veterans' standpoint, I supposed it could have stung a little. I was actually debating whether I owed him a real apology when Ji Ha-seob waved his hand dismissively.

"Hey, kidding, kidding. You know every starter out there wants to throw complete-game shutouts."

"...You were joking, right?"

I genuinely thought you were sulking.

Anyway, when I said I trusted them, I wasn't just being polite. Last year, amid all of Twins baseball, this win-setup bullpen was the one thing you could actually believe in.

A bullpen for a last-place team with a sub-.400 winning percentage — and its ERA still landed in the low twos. That alone was proof enough of how good these pitchers were.

That said, I'd still been a little worried. The opposing lineup really had been in terrifying form today.

But senior Park Ha-neul was dispatching hitters with almost insulting ease.

"Striiiike! Out!"

"Called strike three! Park Ha-neul records his first hold of the season!"

"He logged 26 holds last year with excellent results, didn't he? Some experts said we might see a step back this season — and he goes out and shows them he's exactly the same pitcher as ever."

He'd just punched out the final hitter of the inning to close the frame.

"I had my sights on starting once, you know. Same with Ha-neul over there, or Ba-da stretching right now."

"Really?"

Color me surprised. All three were such textbook bullpen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arms that I'd never pictured it.

"Yep. They retooled and polished our repertoires to fit the pen, and that's how we ended up like this. Our coaches and analysts are downright brilliant at that sort of thing."

Then he flashed a sly grin and tossed a line my way.

"So keep watching. Next up, Ba-da and this old hyung are going to show you how it's really done. If we look cool enough, maybe you'll give the bullpen a thought."

You still haven't given up on converting me and Kang Min-hyuk to relief, have you.

Eighth inning. Still 1–0.

Lee Ba-da took the mound, facing Mariners catcher Jang Soo-hyuk. Ba-da was another two-pitch pitcher, working only a four-seam and a curve.

"Damn it. What in the world did that kid do to his curveball? You can watch it and still not hit it."

He slammed the door on the inning without a scratch.

Ninth inning. We'd tacked on another run to make it 2–0. If the Mariners didn't score at least two here, they were going down.

Ji Ha-seob took the hill, facing the Mariners' leadoff man, Yoo Kang-hyun. Ji Ha-seob threw a four-seam and a slider... and so on, and so forth.

"This is genuinely absurd. Do they run a pitcher factory over there or what? A guy like that shows up every single year — facing them is hell on earth."

"Hasn't Ha-seob hyung been around a while, though?"

"Start with Hyunseok hyung, then Min-woo, Ha-seob, Ba-da, Ha-neul — and now there's that freak too. That's just counting the big names; start including the decent ones between them and, ugh, don't get me started."

The Twins were always like this. The moment word got out that a bullpen arm went down, left via free agency, or fell off from age, some mid-tier prospect nobody believed in would get a year or two of refinement and be reborn as a monster setup man.

Ji Ha-seob himself had originally been a mediocre college-draft pick; Lee Ba-da was a high-school draftee taken in the fifth round who'd arrived in a trade; even Park Ha-neul came out of the early draft in the fourth round without anyone expecting much.

The highly-touted early-round picks, meanwhile, all failed in their attempts to convert to starting during the win-now era and got shipped off as trade chips to other clubs. Either way, the point stood: usable pitchers just kept sprouting out of this organization like weeds.

"Well, that's what happens when your lineup is this full of holes. Anyway, the game's over — go get some rest, hyung."

"Ugh."

Final score: 2–0. A Seoul Twins victory.

The Incheon Mariners players were left to trudge meekly back to their hotel, having felt it in their bones that the Twins' win-setup corps — terrifying even back when the team was a cellar-dweller — was every bit as lethal as ever.

Victory, at long last.

For Twins fans, the reaction was less pure joy than a collective exhale. Getting swept in the opening series by a team that had finished dead last two years running — it had been a moment stuffed to the brim with despair, and this win was the one thin ray of light shining through it.

Sure, the last opponent had been the defending champion Gwangju Phoenix, but today's foe was no pushover either — the Incheon Mariners, third in the Southern Division. In the worst case, the season could have started with a six-game losing streak.

A long losing skid out of the gate wrecks more than the fans' morale; the entire clubhouse comes apart at the seams. In that sense, this victory meant a great deal.

And so, right around the time the fans' judgment was going numb with hope — the moment the community boards started flooding with posts like "All aboard the Twins Victory Express~" — the players were busy letting their own reins loose in their own particular way.

"Runt! Be honest with me — you were throwing absolute fire out there because you wanted to show up the seniors who can't hit, weren't you?"

"No, sir."

A certain hotel in Incheon, home to the Seoul Twins on the road. Apparently determined to flip the mood that had sunk with the three-game opening sweep, the team captain and senior Kang Hyun-seok had summoned the entire first-team squad — everyone except tomorrow's starter, Kang Min-hyuk.

Then they'd booked out the hotel restaurant entirely and kicked off a celebration dinner for the Runt's debut.

"No, my foot. What ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do you mean, no? Hey, when I saw Hae-ryong come up as a pinch hitter in the eighth and swing clean through it, even I got a little misty. The Dragon's the only bat we've got left to lean on, and now he's getting old. What then, huh?"

"Now, now, Hyunseok hyung. We're all growing old together — no need to say it like that. From what I saw of your last start, your arm's got nothing left either. Does it hurt to lift your spoon these days?"

The veterans were leading the charge in roasting each other, apparently decided to laugh off every slump and blunder of the past weeks. There was another game tomorrow, but the beer had been approved on the strict condition of "one bottle each," so the overall atmosphere was bright as could be.

And it was in the middle of all that rowdy laughter that senior Lee Hae-ryong quietly sidled up to me.

"Yi-seon."

"Yes, hyung-nim."

"I'm sorry. All this time — the pandemic, the quarantine protocols — I've been neglecting the rookies."

Then he said, with complete sincerity:

"I heard it from the manager today. That you wanted to keep pitching."

"Yes."

"Of course you did. Most starters feel that way. But more than that — you didn't trust the veterans, did you?"

Senior Lee Hae-ryong's face was tinged with bitterness.

I couldn't bring myself to say yes, so I kept my mouth shut — but perhaps silence served as my answer, because he nodded.

"I understand. Last year we finished last, and this year we open with three straight losses... You pitch your heart out and the offense scores exactly one run for you. It would be suffocating. I wouldn't trust me, either."

"No, it really wasn't for that reason—"

It was the opposing starter and those hitters' momentum that scared me, not anything about our guys...

But he must have taken my protest as mere politeness, because senior Lee Hae-ryong just waved it off.

"Still, I think today's game helped you trust us a little. Your seniors have plenty of fight left in them. The moment you came out, the pitching staff shut them down without a run, and the position players scored more and played hard in the field — didn't they?"

Then he made eye contact with me — eyes that carried a surprising weight.

"Remember this. Baseball is not a sport you play alone, and there will come a moment when you have to trust your teammates. And your seniors — they are people well worth trusting."

"Uh... yes, sir."

Why is this man so intense about this?

And with that, the one-man lecture concluded. He cleared his throat with a ponderous "ahem" and then, out of nowhere, pulled out his phone.

"You should have a group chat invitation by now. Accept it."

"Sorry?"

What group chat, all of a sudden?

"Tradition, you see. Before your first-team debut, you don't get first-team treatment even if you're added to the roster — that's the culture here. I couldn't make an exception for you, so the boys just asked you a few questions and left it at that. Hyunseok hyung got to hound you because he's the pitchers' captain, that's all."

"But isn't there already a team chat?"

"That one's just for announcements. The real first-team squad chat is this one."

Ah.

So in my past life there really was a secret group chat where everyone gathered — everyone except me, whose identity they could never confirm.

I pulled out my phone, accepted the invite, and joined the group the moment a flood of welcome messages came pouring down.

How are people who are loudly eating and gabbing at the tables right now replying to this instantly?

While I stood there dumbfounded, senior Lee Hae-ryong leaned in and began whispering carefully into my ear.

"...By the way, Yi-seon."

"Yes, hyung-nim?"

"Didn't you say you have a girlfriend you've already registered the marriage with?"

I nodded. Wait — I didn't think I'd ever told the team captain about that.

He had come to observe spring camp, and nobody had ever sworn him to secrecy, so I suppose he could have known. But why bring it up now, of all things?

"Right, well — you're a married man now too, aren't you, hyung included. So here's my advice: treat your girlfriend well."

"Yes, I mean, obviously..."

Is there really any need to whisper this in my ear so delicately? I was still thinking that when Lee Hae-ryong finally got to the point.

"And... tell your girlfriend that I said thank you."

"...Sorry?"

"No, it's... just something that happened."

"Hey! Lee Hae-ryong, you sneaky bastard, butting in line again!"

Senior Kang Hyun-seok came charging over out of nowhere.

Lee Hae-ryong parried with the wounded dignity of an innocent man.

"Hyung, I'm the team captain. Looking after a rookie is my job. What's the problem here?"

"The problem? I saw you putting in a request ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with his sister-in-law with my own two eyes!"

A request? With who?

"Yi-seon! Hey. Who's taken the best care of you on this team, hmm? It's this uncle, isn't it? Make sure you put in a good word with your girlfriend too."

That's exactly why I'm asking — why, though?

Honestly, when I started dating Seo-hee noona, I hadn't intended anything by it — but there were times I'd wondered whether I hadn't become the true power behind the throne at the Twins.

Well, of course. Seo-hee noona is tripping over herself to do things for me.

But I'd been dead wrong about everything. The real power in this club was Lee Ye-eun.

Truly astonishing, every single time I witness it. How does she do that?