The Championship Race (3)
"Your curveball command was solid, but you went after him too fast. You could've wasted a couple of pitches."
Park Ujin came into the dugout grumbling, whether because I'd shaken off his sign or because he didn't like me attacking with a breaking ball at two strikes.
"I figured Gi Suhoon would put the bat on it even if it was out of the zone. Going with a chase pitch is the textbook play. I needed to catch him off guard and take the bat out of his hands."
"If he hits a ball that's out of the zone, that's just one of those things."
"There's no such thing as one of those things. If we'd given up runs early today, the whole game would've gotten away from us."
"..."
I wasn't looking for a fight, but when it was time to stand firm, I had to stand firm, so I didn't back down. And ever since my role had changed to starter, I'd noticed that my nerves ran a little sharper on game days, without my even meaning them to.
"We said we'd keep it tight even if the outing was short. Nobody said you had to throw a shutout. And if it's second and nobody out on an error, nobody's putting that on you."
"Error or not, I want the win no matter what. I don't care about records or what anyone around me has to say."
I am a greedy man. Especially when it comes to the things I want by instinct. I like money. I like being popular. I like women. But as a baseball player, I could not tolerate the team I belonged to turning into a mediocrity. We weren't dead last — we had a roster that could win a championship. That meant we had to win the championship. No other outcome was acceptable.
"Alright. You might be a much bigger deal than I gave you credit for."
"..."
I didn't answer.
The ball exploded into the catcher's mitt.
"Strikeout!"
Our cleanup hitter, Ramirez, went down swinging at an inside fastball. I had a feeling this inning was going to be another grind, and I started preparing myself, quietly, to take the mound again.
The lineup had turned over once, and I'd handled the one and two hitters just fine. The bottom of the fourth would start with the three-hole: Gi Suhoon.
Come to think of it, that kid had made the Asian Games roster too. Military exemption on the line — he'd be playing his heart out, wouldn't he? I'd be counting on him then.
The ball popped into the mitt.
"Strike!"
Of course, that was a problem for another day. In his first at-bat I'd planted a curveball that came in for a strike right in the middle of Gi Suhoon's head. I had the edge in the chess match.
The ball popped into the mitt again.
"Strike!"
But I am not a finesse pitcher. Sequencing is just the seasoning. What I do is pin hitters to the dirt with overwhelming stuff.
The third pitch was exactly what Park Ujin had wanted — a sweeper that ran off the plate to the outside. Gi Suhoon's bat was nowhere near where the ball met the mitt.
"Strikeout!"
That unflappable Gi Suhoon shook his head, slow and helpless. Give up. Despair. I wanted him walking back to the dugout with the thought that the next time he saw me, he wouldn't be able to do a thing.
Fernando stepped into the box. Get past this one and the rest of the order wasn't hard. Not this Buffaloes lineup, at least — not the way it was built right now.
The bat cracked.
"Foul!"
He'd been sitting on it. Fernando got ahold of my outside fastball, but it hooked foul. I hadn't planned on walking through this at-bat, and he was every bit the hitter I thought he was. Maybe it was just a feeling, but the quality of the foreign bats around the league had jumped a notch since last year.
The ball popped the mitt, off the plate.
"Ball!"
A chase-pitch sweeper is a hard sell against a righty. It's a dangerous pitch even when it catches the zone on them.
"Ball!"
And if he wasn't going to bite on the curve either, that made things a little uncomfortable.
I went up the ladder. Fernando's bat cut through empty air.
"Strike!"
The look on his face said it all — he'd come in hunting the fastball. And still he wouldn't touch the curve. I felt, not for the first time, that I needed to grow. It didn't mean anything today.
But my fastball is not something you can just hit because you're looking for it.
The high fastball got him again. Fernando swung through it a second time.
"Strikeout!"
The five-hole, Kim Chaeho, stepped in. He was never a hitter who should have been batting fifth for a club of the Buffaloes' caliber in the first place.
One pitch. Then another. Then a third — an outside sweeper that a right-handed hitter had no business taking, and he never even started the bat.
"Strikeout!"
"See? I told you that sweeper is filthy."
"It really is working today."
"Ha. That's why I told you to throw it a lot from the first inning. You can feel it when you catch in the bullpen before the game."
"You've got a good eye, that's for sure."
Park Ujin laughed it off just enough. He wasn't trying to prove he'd been right so much as he was trying to loosen an atmosphere that had gone a little stiff. Our club really did have a lot of good guys.
The top of the fifth would start with the eight-hole. I wasn't expecting much. But even if we went down in order, the top of the sixth was Gang Daeho, Kim Junsu, and Ramirez — a stretch of the order you could actually trust. And the man after that was Park Ujin, who was having a career year. In the second half he'd locked himself in as the five-hole in the cleanup trio.
So we needed to put a number on the board in the sixth, at least. I didn't know. The guys at the bottom of the order were getting paid to play this game too. Even if the man on the mound was Dustin, they ought to give me a run.
"Out!"
A well-struck ball off the bat of our leadoff hitter, right fielder Hong Changsu, settled into the glove of Buffaloes left fielder Gi Suhoon.
I let out a breath. Just try not scoring next inning too.
"Don't get too antsy if we don't score. Dustin can't throw like this all the way to the end."
"I know."
I lost something off the ball the deeper I went, too. Dustin was fifteen years older than I was. It would be that much harder for him. It was true he was throwing the most innings in the league this season. That did not automatically mean he had an iron arm. Even the great ones are equal in front of a pitch count north of a hundred.
"Out!"
Dustin came off the mound to a roar from the home crowd. It was true his stuff was fading. That much was a fact. And yet — like a fox that looks like it's about to be caught and never quite is — he kept slipping away.
Our seven and eight hitters strung together back-to-back singles with two outs, and we still couldn't cash it in. I almost snapped at the seniors without meaning to. That was close. The cameras were probably on me.
The problem was my pitch count. Eighty-nine. Close enough that a hook was in play. The bullpen had already been getting loose for a while.
"Lee Junseong. Can you still throw?"
The pitching coach came over and asked it carefully.
"Of course."
"This is your last inning. I'm counting on you."
"Thank you."
The second I heard it I grabbed my glove and headed for the mound. Two-hole Oh Yeongmin, three-hole Gi Suhoon, cleanup Fernando. A nasty stretch of the order — but if I shut them down myself, the eighth and ninth would get a lot easier. That was an ace's job.
Oh Yeongmin stepped in. The pitch count was staring at a hundred. I am not the type who pitches with Dustin's easy tempo, so compared to starters who know how to manage a game, the physical cost on me should have been heavier. That was the normal way of things. Even if I had the best body in the world, I was still just a rookie. But I wanted to look like an ace right now.
The bat made a dull sound. Oh Yeongmin's weak contact found shortstop Kim Junsu.
"Out!"
He ran through the bag like his life depended on it and was still out at first. I'd give him credit for that.
Next was the three-hole, Gi Suhoon. Not a hitter you took lightly — but today, at least, he had nothing for me.
The ball popped the mitt.
"Strike!"
Park Ujin and I were on the same page. He put down a curve for the first pitch, and it painted the outside corner like it had all the time in the world. I could feel Gi Suhoon glaring at me from the box. Finesse pitchers must live for this feeling. Not bad.
"Strike!"
And hitters who get fired up and come charging at me like this are the ones I'm most comfortable with.
Two fastballs in a row. Gi Suhoon struck out for the third time today and snapped his bat over his thigh.
"Strikeout!"
Cleanup. Fernando. This was my last inning. I threw a fastball that faded just off the outside edge.
The bat cracked.
Ah.
Fernando's hard-hit grounder snuck through the hole between first and second. Did I miss my spot a little? It was fine. The five-hole, Kim Chaeho, wasn't a tough matchup.
"Player substitution!"
A sub? Was there anyone on that bench who'd hit fifth? Kim Chaeho was a good defender, too.
The pinch hitter's name came up on the scoreboard, and the home crowd found another gear.
Ma Dongsoo. One of the best hitters in the league, the undisputed best catcher in the game, the man who had been out with an injury — and there he was.
As it happened, Ma Dongsoo and I were facing each other for the first time this season. He'd been so banged up with injuries all year, and I'd been in the bullpen, so I hadn't been pitching on any kind of regular schedule.
I'd thought this was going to be easy.
Fernando on base. Ma Dongsoo, a man I'd never faced, stepping into the box. How much of his body had come back?
I let out a long breath and tried to lock back in.