Chapter 710 – Episode 697. First Injury. (1)

[Ji Maeng-ho, who swept Korea, and Trilling, the best pitcher in the American League, will face off from the first at-bat in the bottom of the first inning. I’m really looking forward to this match, right?]

[Yes. Actually, Ji Maeng-ho and Trilling have already faced each other in the WBC, right? I remember he went 2-for-3 with one home run at that time, so I’ll have to see how the game goes today.]

[Trilling’s first pitch. Low on the body. Ball.]

[He boldly throws a curveball against Ji Maeng-ho from the first pitch. In fact, each major league club probably knows that Ji Maeng-ho is good at hitting the curveball, right? Whether he will continue to throw curveballs will be a key point to watch in today’s game.]

[And the second verse that follows. Ji Maeng-ho hit, foul, ah! Ji Maeng-ho falls at the plate!]

[Ooh. It looks like you got hit in the foot by a batted ball. That’s the part without the protector… I hope there are no injuries.]

[Ah… I can’t wake up… Ah, eventually I get help and head to the dugout…]

[It’s not good to be like this. But Ji Maeng-ho is actually a player with a big body and a lot of muscle, but he has almost no injuries, right? As far as I know, he does Pilates every morning, which makes him a very flexible athlete. He is a born Geumgang Buddha. It’s probably not a major injury.]

┗The fierce god of defense is cunning haha

┗┗I ate the money haha

┗The stats are so low ㅡ I met Trilling and got tricked haha

┗┗Stat management starting from exhibition games

┗Ji Maeng-ho, this scammer, please return the Yankees’ $260 million ㅡ

[We will inform you of news about Ji Maeng-ho as soon as it is delivered.]

*

“Umm… If you look at the MRI picture, you can see a slight crack, right? This is a place called the metatarsal bone, and if you look at the 1st metatarsal bone, that is, the thumb area, there is a slight crack there. Actually, this is not an area where cracks often occur…, It looks like the shock was severe. Still, there is no need for surgery, so it would be better to rest as much as possible, right? Haha.”

Fuck. I’ve never been injured in my life unless it was a car accident, but I got injured as soon as I came to the United States. But now there was something more important than swearing.

“… How long will it take to recover?”

“Well, it depends on the patient, but usually it takes about 4 to 6 weeks.”

“Under…”

4-6 weeks. Since it was March 1st, recovery was expected as early as the first week of April, and at the slowest, around mid-April.

“If you continue to wear a cast and rest, it may heal faster. It’s not a very serious injury, so you don’t have to worry. Haha. That’s a good thing. If it was a complete fracture, I would have had to have surgery and rest for about 3 to 4 months. Haha.”

The doctor was smiling and speaking in a friendly manner, but the team employee who was listening next to him had a sour expression on his face. My expression must be like that too…

“… Training is not possible, right?”

“Haha, of course you can’t do that, right? You should get plenty of rest while wearing the cast. And you have to constantly receive rehabilitation treatment. Oh, maybe upper body exercises are possible. Of course, with guidance from a trainer. If you overdo it, it can have negative effects. Haha.”

“Don’t laugh.”

“… Yes.”

Damn, someone got hurt, and I was laughing from a while ago.

“Under… Fracture…”

I’ve never had anything like this while playing baseball… Even when I was hit by a ball from Woowoo, who was throwing 160 degrees, I only got bruises and didn’t break any bones, but I got hit by the ball I hit, and my bones cracked.

‘Come to think of it, Gerrit Cole wasn’t hit by my ball either? I feel a little sorry…’

If he was lucky, it was an injury that would allow him to return by the opening game, but it was a very painful injury as it was the spring training of his first season in the major leagues. I should have gotten used to it more by watching the ball a little more during spring camp…

The feeling of hitting could be maintained through imagination training with Mr. Rossby, but not being able to see more pitchers’ balls was a big penalty. However, it was a very painful injury because it was a nuisance to the team if the performance dropped while waiting for the ball in the regular season. … My bones really hurt.

“All right. Mr. Ji. Let’s go back to the club first.”

“Under… Let’s go.”

When I put on the cast and returned to the stadium where the game was being held, the game was in the top of the 9th inning, and when I entered the dugout, Coach Mattingly looked at my foot and sighed deeply.

“Ha… “Microfracture?”

“Yes, they say it’s nothing serious…”

“Oh my. Under… “About 4 to 6 weeks?”

“They say it varies from person to person, but that’s how long it takes.”

“Okay, then what do you plan to do during that period?”

“I’m going to go to a designated hospital here and get some exercise.”

Actually, I bought a house, but when I went back to New York, it was no different from here. Because there were no people to take care of me.

Soyoung was still staying in Korea because she was a baby, Hyuna was in the middle of her season, and Jo Eun couldn’t come because the semester had just started. Of course Hyejin can’t come.

Even though Jia was in the US right now, she was filming Seungcheol’s vlog with the filming team, so she had to finish filming before she could come to me.

If I go back to New York, will I be alone in an unfamiliar room for a month? It would have been better to go to the hospital while commuting from here. At least here, there was a team employee to take care of me, and the hospital provided a professional rehabilitation trainer to teach me the exercises I could do.

“I get it. I hope you recover quickly.”

“I hope so too.”

As I finished talking with Mattingly and sat down on her bench, Judge, who was resting as the designated hitter today, approached me.

“Ji. How is your condition?”

“Hopefully, the opening game? If things don’t go well, it will likely take 1–2 weeks before the opening game.”

“This… But just in case, did you get often hurt in Korea?”

When I saw Judge’s eyes shaking a lot as he asked, it seemed like he had a lot of burns due to his injuries. Well, I suffered a lot because of my injury.

“No, this is my first time getting hurt.”

“Phew… Thank goodness. Still, I’m really glad that my muscles weren’t torn or damaged. “Once a muscle is injured, it is injured for the rest of its life.”

“It is fortunate among misfortunes.”

“Yes, I’m working hard on rehabilitation. Please do not try to force your way back. “Our team is not a team that falls apart without one player for a week or two.”

“I understand.”

While we were talking with Judge, closer Miller finished off Boston’s batters with a three-way strike, and the score was 6:4, ending with our victory. Judging by the high score, it seems that trilling has gone down quite quickly.

As I was greeting the players, I glanced at the atmosphere and saw that most of them seemed sad about my injury, while the kids aiming for second base seemed to have a slight smile on their faces. Do you think he is thinking that if he shows a good performance at spring camp while I am away, he might become a starting player?

But honestly, I wasn’t worried when I saw that.

First, the first choice to fill my empty spot was infield utility player Tomas Sujeisi, and although his defense was acceptable, Pata was not a very good player in my opinion. Prospect Paul Scantlebury had a decent ability to hit, but his defense was a bit shaky.

Besides him, there was a guy like Kevin Smith, but this guy was 30 years old and the worst of the three, so it seemed like he would probably only be in the main defense while I was gone.

Overall, is there no talent that could threaten me? It seemed like he was trying to take my place by taking advantage of my injury to show an impact, but honestly, he seemed like he had no chance.

However, even among the starting players, there was one person who had a subtle reaction to my injury.

“Hmm… Hey Ji. “Once that injury heals, will I be able to play defense?”

“I think I’ll have to check it out then.”

“I hope you come back after everything is better. Enough to be able to defend. “If I overexert myself and get injured again, it’s a big problem, right?”

Verdugo, who I had been drinking with, wanted me to rest until I could defend as much as possible.

In a way, it was natural. If I don’t play defense, I will play as the designated hitter, and Judge, who is the designated hitter, will go to the outfield. And in that case, there was a high probability that Judge would play center field or right field at that age, so he would be the starting left fielder.

Otherwise, Verdugo had to play better against right fielder Soto or Pata or play better defense than center fielder Kelnick. However, since Verdugo’s hitting skills were worse than Kelnick’s, let alone Soto’s, it was safe to say that he had little chance of doing so.

“Yeah, whatever. First, let’s look at the recovery trend. “I also want to come when I can defend, if possible.”

“Haha, yeah, buddy.”

In response to my answer, Verdugo erases his serious mood and cheerfully calls me his friend again, before stopping to touch my body.

‘Well, it seems like I received proper etiquette training at this level.’

‘But, just because your feet hurt doesn’t mean you can’t have sex, right?’

‘Is that important now? My student was injured.’

‘Of course it’s important, dude.’

Ugh, I really can’t stop Mr. Rossby. If someone gets hurt and goes crazy about sex…

In any case, in order to crush the expectations of those who are secretly hoping for my injury, I must rest and rehabilitate thoroughly.

After that injury, I headed to the hospital’s rehabilitation center to receive physical therapy and training that could be done with an injured foot.

“Hello. You’re Ji from the Yankees, right? Let’s work hard together so that our physical condition doesn’t worsen when we return.”

I was able to meet a rehabilitation trainer who greeted me with a smile and a charming voice. Of course, the gender was female.

If the boy had smiled and talked to me in a charming voice, I would have jumped straight to death and been lying on the floor.

… No, even if you are a woman, the future of lying down is the same.