Chapter 737 – Episode 724. Aftereffects? (2)

[… Although they gave up 1 point, Gerrit Cole saved the crisis! There will be 7 innings in this game as well. With three consecutive high-quality starts and four consecutive quality starts plus, he proves why he is the Yankees’ ace.]

[… Stanton’s hit came out after two outs! … Out! Jacob Lopez closes out the bottom of the 7th inning. … Now, in the top of the 8th inning, Nick Buddy is on the mound for the Yankees. He has appeared in 4 games this season and has an ERA of 1.69.]

[Buddy went back and forth between starting and bullpen last season, recording 4 wins, 5 losses, and an ERA of 5.51 over 96.1 innings. This season, Manager Mattingly has fixed his position in the bullpen, showing signs of a winning streak, right?]

[Now at bat is the Rays’ number three hitter, Yandy Diaz. He is currently batting .304 with 5 home runs and 13 RBIs.]

[Last season, he hit .208 with a batting average of 15 home runs and 88 RBIs, showing that he still looks good despite his age. Because he is a mid-to-long range hitter with a good pitching vision and batting ability…]

[… Uh! The moment I tell you! Diaz’s batted ball cuts into left-center! Diaz’s double! And now at bat is the number 4 hitter, Marcell Ozuna. This season, he is batting .203 with 6 reeve and one home run.]

[Ozuna, Seon Sun-de, who was recruited by the Tampa Bay Rays this season, was unable to play in a major league game last season due to an injury? So he was released from Cincinnati with a penalty. In fact, many fans were wondering why the Rays signed Ozuna, who is older and has a history of injuries, but his current performance is not that good. Ozuna will have to prove why he was recruited to the Rays.]

[… Ozuna’s batted ball! Right! Right! Right! Let’s go! Score 4:3! The Tampa Bay Rays make a comeback in an instant! The powerful punch that fans wanted! It explodes at this moment!]

*

“Fuck!”

Gerrit Cole is seen swearing and leaving the dugout. Of course, it was a situation worth getting angry about. Anyone would have been upset if the pitcher who came on in the 8th inning gave up 2 runs and lost the win after going 7 innings with 2 runs.

However, I couldn’t blame Buddy or the coach who put in Buddy. The introduction of Buddy, who had shown good performance in previous games, was common sense, and the ball that Buddy hit for a home run was not an absurd miss, but a ball that Ozuna pushed well.

Of course, that wasn’t an excuse, but since Cole was aware of the situation, he probably went in quietly to vent his anger. However, when I took a quick look, it seemed like Buddy standing on the mound was also aware of the situation.

As soon as I think I need to tell him to come to his senses, Ohapi calls time and goes up to the mound.

“Hey, Nick. Let’s go slowly. Anyway, 2 innings are enough to score 1 point. Okay? Let’s stop this inning first.”

“Okay, Logan. I’m sorry. I should have controlled it a little better.”

“No, I should have asked for a slider, but that was my mistake.”

When I heard what they were talking about, the batteries were saying they were sorry to each other. But in my opinion, catcher Ohapee didn’t seem to like the pitcher’s control, and pitcher Buddy didn’t seem to like the pitch that the catcher asked for.

Since the team’s atmosphere was good after winning 14 games in a row, I didn’t feel like I was angry, but the atmosphere I felt in the way I spoke was exactly that.

‘Sweet, I think it’s going to be a headache if these things pile up…’

“… Out!”

“… Strike out!”

“… Out!”

Fortunately, Buddy ruled out all three remaining batters, and the top of the 8th inning ended without any more runs. The score is now 4:3, with a one point difference. Fortunately, the bottom of the 8th inning started with Hole, the 8th batter, and even though I got two outs, it was an inning where even I got a chance to bat.

‘For now, let’s think about winning.’

Problems within the team started to appear yesterday, but the important thing is to win.

“… Out!”

“… Strike out!”

… However, Hall and Volpi are out, making it two outs at once.

“Base on balls.”

And after the new pitcher got a strike with a fastball, he threw a slider five times in a row and walked me.

‘Fuck, I can’t hit without missing like this…’

I wanted to hit a home run if possible, but for a moment, I walked to first base feeling sad that the ball wasn’t big enough to hit a home run. When you’re getting ready to run,

Perfect!

The ball that Judge pushed landed in front of right field, and I ran to third base. Now the situation is 2 outs, 1st and 3rd bases. And Soto at bat.

Taaak!

After a persistent battle, Soto’s line drive flies into the outfield.

‘That’s it! ‘It’s split!’

As I was slowly walking toward home and looking at the batted ball, confident that this was a batted ball that would split right-center, the center fielder flew up about 4 to 5 meters to the side.

“And…”

A diving catch that will leave you amazed the moment you see it. And then he lifts his glove.

“Fuck, did you get caught?”

In fact, the so-called ‘Major League-level defense’ that I had only seen in videos unfolded before my eyes.

‘… ‘Is it over today?’

If it had hit right-center, it would have been two outs, so Judge could have easily come home, reversed the game, and continued the attack with a runner on second base, but the hit was caught by Hosbi…

“Fuck!”

Soto throws his helmet on the floor and loses his temper. It’s been a while since I’ve known him, but it’s the first time I’ve seen him lose his temper like that. It seems like Soto instinctively felt that today’s game was over.

After that, when I entered the dugout to change offense and defense, the atmosphere in the dugout was tense, perhaps because of the sight of Cole sitting on the bench, chewing gum like he was dying. The atmosphere in the dugout becomes even more tense when Soto, who is still angry and muttering profanities as if he is still angry, comes in.

In this kind of atmosphere, it would have been natural for a coach or captain to step forward, but since the combined price of Cole and Soto was almost $80 million, no one stepped forward.

‘First, let’s focus on the game…’

After finishing defense, we returned to the dugout, but the atmosphere in the dugout did not seem to ease throughout the offense in the bottom of the 9th inning. A few players who didn’t have enough time or weren’t worth the money were hanging on the dugout railing and cheering, but it was somewhat passive.

Well, I was just standing on the bench and watching.

And the game ends with the opponent’s finishing pitcher being outed, just as the atmosphere is going down.

“That was unlucky. Let’s win again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well, you might lose at least once. Let’s rest well today and prepare well for tomorrow’s game.”

After the game, coach Mattingly and captain Judge exchanged a word, but it felt somewhat empty. Although I lost 2 times in a row, I felt like I couldn’t say anything because I had won 14 times in a row before that.

Well, it may be that American culture is a culture that does not speak loudly in the first place, but in any case, the atmosphere of the players was subdued, and the strange atmosphere made me feel uneasy.

And that somewhat awkward atmosphere continued in the second game as well.

Starter Logan Gilbert played well, allowing 3 runs in 7 innings, but 2 runs came from the bullpen in the remaining 2 innings, and although our batting lineup had 11 hits, the sporadic hits resulted in only 3 runs. .

In addition, with 2 runs scored from my solo home run and Volpi’s solo home run, it didn’t feel like it did when we won 14 games in a row.

In the end, the score at the end of the game was 5:3.

As if our 14 consecutive wins were a lie, we ended up losing 3 times in a row.

‘… I understand why we couldn’t win with these players.’

And I immediately realized why the Yankees couldn’t even step on the threshold of winning with these players.

It wasn’t visible during the 14-game winning streak, but the reason was clearly visible after the 3-game losing streak.

Compared to AT, the team was like grains of sand. AT was one of the last 10 teams that could not even go to the fall baseball season, but they were united around veteran Kwan Hyeong.

When I joined, there was a feeling that the team wasn’t able to come together, but Jincheol and Sangju, who were recruited as free agents at the same time as I joined, helped to maintain that atmosphere. The foreign coach whose name I don’t remember ran away and coach Lee Suhyun took over. While doing so, the team began to come together as one.

Honestly, during my AT days, if I had been watching and not cheering like I did yesterday in the 9th inning, Jincheol senior or Sangju senior would have told me to come out and cheer, but there was no one like that here. What can I say, overall the Yankees felt more like a workplace than a team.

Moreover, Coach Mattingly, who thought that the team’s legend would bring discipline, felt like he could not be strong enough to support other players, perhaps because the salary gap between him and the players was as much as 10 times that of the other players.

It may be that I can’t say anything because I won 14 games in a row, but that’s how I felt anyway.

Besides, what about the whole team? I felt like I was paying too much attention to the opinions of high-income earners. Just look at how the atmosphere in the dugout had calmed down in yesterday’s game as they were watching Cole and Soto’s thoughts.

Although the Yankees were the team with the highest salaries in the major leagues, most of that was concentrated on starting pitchers. There were 11 players on the Yankees, including myself, who were paid more than $10 million, five of whom were starting pitchers and three of whom were Judge, Stanton, and Soto.

The other two were Ohapi and Volpi, but when viewed as major league jjambap, those two were not the jjambap that would be served in the dugout.

Meanwhile, as Cole and Soto were in a bad mood, the team’s mood sank, and most players were busy paying attention to them.

Cole felt like the leader of the pitchers, and Soto felt like the leader of the Hispanic community, so it was natural for them to be noticed, but seeing the good atmosphere cool down all at once was problematic.

In times like this, people like Judge and Stanton, who had high salaries and were full of money, should have set the tone, but Judge felt like a bit of a brat and Stanton had a hard time taking care of himself, so there was no one to set the tone for the team.

How about a call?

The pitcher was originally a type of person who was happy when his performance was good and got angry like a girl when his performance wasn’t good, so he wasn’t suited to be the leader of the team, so he didn’t have many expectations.

I wanted to set the tone by beating a few guys, but I knew that if the youngest and just debuted guy did something like that, the team’s atmosphere would fall further, so it wasn’t easy.

‘Tsk, it would be nice if Judge could control the team a little bit.’

Honestly, aside from bragging to me, the other players seemed to have their own charisma, so when I felt a little disappointed, Mr. Rossby spoke up.

‘Tsk, I’m still a kid.’

‘Why me?’

‘Can’t you tell just by looking at it? A guy named Soto is a Hispanic leader. Say something to him. The team is immediately split in two. Tsk tsk, how old are you, and you still don’t know how the team works?’

‘Is it so? When I saw them, they seemed to get along well, right?’

‘It seems okay because we don’t touch each other. Tsk, that’s what happens when a team has two-star players. Either the two of us pretend to like each other and get along, or one of us completely crushes it.’

‘There are three of us including me?’

‘… Ugh. Yes, three people.’

‘But Mr. Rossby, how do you know such things so well?’

‘Bastard. Have you forgotten that this person used to be a director? Of course, my time was rougher. Hehe, it was really fun back then.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Me? ‘I should give it to you.’

… Should I just beat him up like Mr. Rossby?

For a moment, I gave up that thought because I didn’t want to end up on the same level as the barbarians who lived in the early 20th century.

In addition, the starter for tomorrow’s game is McClanahan, who is currently having the best performance in the major league. He was a monster, allowing only 4 runs in 27.2 innings.

In addition, tomorrow’s match was especially important because Rodon was in the worst shape among the team’s starters and the gap with Tampa Bay had narrowed to 0.5 games. Now is the time to focus on tomorrow’s game rather than these complicated thoughts.

‘Mr. Rossby, when we get home, let’s hit this little ball.’

That’s why he decided to stop thinking and hit McClanahan’s ball. Although I remember when we met at the WBC in ’23, it was much better to go in and practice than to do nothing.

‘Well, the team atmosphere may be shit right now, but it was good when we won 14 games in a row, so if we win again, it will pick up again.’