In the second inning both pitchers settled down and neither side scored.

Then the top of the third.

The score was still 2–0.

The Quakes in front.

The leadoff man was Suho.

—And the leadoff man, Suho Oh, steps in again.

—The first inning really was the Suho Oh show.

—That bunt single was really something.

—I was more impressed by the defense.

—So he was impressive on both sides of the ball? That’s the highest praise there is, isn’t it?

—Ha. It is. And the problem for them is that this kid is on fire right now. I can’t wait to see whether he gives us another one!

The moment Suho stepped into the box, a sign came out of the 66ers dugout.

At the sign, the first baseman and the third baseman came in another step.

Exactly as Suho had expected before the game.

I knew they’d be guarding the bunt.

Which left one thing.

All he had to do was hit it hard.

That was more than enough to turn this second at-bat into a hit.

Suho looked at the pitcher.

The skin that had been white as porcelain was blotchy and red now.

White guys really do give it all away.

Because he was showing his feelings like that.

Which meant he was furious.

A major leaguer would be able to hide it, of course, white or not.

But this isn’t the major leagues, is it?

And in fact the pitcher was shaking with anger.

He had taken the little trick Suho pulled in the first inning as a personal humiliation.

There was an answer to it now, though.

The first baseman and the third baseman were playing in.

He couldn’t bunt in a situation like this.

Which left one thing to think about.

The exit velocity.

It was fine.

With the velocity he had, he was confident he wouldn’t get hit hard.

He barely got that bunt down in the last at-bat.

Because nobody short of Cash Meyer’s level got a piece of his stuff easily.

And was this black-haired Asian at that level?

Absolutely not…

The odds of him touching this ball were fifty-fifty? Not even a quarter of that.

The pitcher glared at Suho like he wanted to eat him alive, and went into his windup.

He wrung every bit of strength in his body into the pitch, then closed his fist like a man certain he’d gotten it exactly right.

He cannot hit this.

And then.

Suho’s bat came around.

A rush of air.

W— wait a second.

The pitcher doubted his own eyes.

Because Suho’s bat speed was past anything he’d imagined.

He’d known the bat speed was good.

But seeing it in a game and watching it on video a hundred times were two different things entirely.

Then he doubted his ears too.

Because the bat cutting the air sounded like a storm coming through.

The man hit nothing but ground balls, so honestly he’d assumed there was something wrong with the swing.

There was nothing wrong with it.

It was a perfect swing.

I’m— I’m finished.

Craaack!

A vicious crack of sound shook the ballpark.

The ball was on the ground again.

The reason Suho hit nothing but ground balls day in and day out was simple enough.

The new mechanics were still awkward on him.

They used his whole body, so far more force went into the ball than when he had swung with his arms alone.

Which naturally left his bat control behind.

But it wasn’t a problem worth worrying about yet.

And no wonder — Suho had intended from the start to work through the flaws one at a time.

And the improvement was showing up in the results, too.

This one took its first bounce near the second baseman and shot off toward right-center like a bullet.

The first bounce kept getting farther from the box.

Which meant he was getting closer to solid contact.

Damn it!

The pitcher spun around in a hurry.

The right fielder went after the ball, and he was already too late.

The ball was rolling fast toward the outfield fence.

I’m giving up a double on a ground ball?

But the real shock was somewhere else.

Zzzip!

Suho came into the pitcher’s despairing field of view.

Wh— what? Why is the hitter already going to second?

And apparently even that didn’t satisfy him.

Suho went past second base and was running for third.

“What are you doing! Hurry up! Get the relay going!”

The pitcher’s voice rose as he started to panic.

Watching that runner reach second was enough on its own to make him choke on it.

And now he had to watch him standing on third?

With a man on third, even a sacrifice fly put another run across.

“Third! Throw to third!”

And the more frantic the pitcher’s shouting got, the higher the corner of Suho’s mouth went.

That’s right. Throw to third.

That right fielder doesn’t have much of an arm.

Throw to third and it turns into an opportunity instead.

An outfielder with an arm like that would normally hit the shortstop in this situation.

But with the pitcher hounding him, the right fielder picked the ball up at the fence and threw to third.

Suho checked the direction of the throw and put more into his legs.

There was no sign of him stopping.

“Shortstop! What are you doing! Get it!”

The pitcher had told him to throw to third himself and was now blaming the shortstop for it.

In the end the shortstop moved fast and cut the throw off on its way to third.

And in that moment Suho went past the bag at third.

Then he ran through the coach’s stop sign and headed for home.

It was a reckless play, honestly.

Because the shortstop already had the ball.

But Suho was certain.

I can make it home easily.

If they had run the relay properly from the start, he would have stopped at third.

But it hadn’t been a relay.

Which meant the shortstop had come a long way out of his position to field it.

Do that and you have to throw with your balance broken.

And a throw made off broken balance can’t be accurate.

I know because I played a lot of shortstop myself.

For a player with overwhelming defensive ability it might be another matter.

And this shortstop isn’t one.

It went exactly as Suho expected.

Thrown properly, the ball would have had him out at the plate.

But the throw didn’t come anywhere near the catcher waiting at the plate.

Suho jogged in and stepped on the plate.

The play-by-play man and the color commentator were screaming with the veins standing out in their necks.

—Ho— home run! It’s a home run! An inside-the-park home run!

—Wow… I’m lost in admiration here. There’s no other way to describe it. He’s just playing with this game.

—That was intentional baserunning, wasn’t it?

—It was. He meant to run all the way home from the start. He picked up speed going from second to third.

—You told us this player’s intelligence was outstanding. And that was a genuinely smart play.

—Suho Oh’s first home run of the playoffs, and his first of the season! Nobody’s going to be prouder of that one than the man himself. And above all… it’s a hard night for the 66ers.

Cash Meyer, out in the on-deck circle.

He had watched the whole thing from beginning to end — a home run built purely out of madness and calculation, nothing at all like the one he’d hit on talent in the first.

Maybe that was why.

His mouth had come very slightly open.

…That works?

When Suho went past him toward the dugout, Cash raised a hand without thinking about it.

Suho laughed under his breath and met the palm.

Smack.

The sound of it was the starting gun.

“Whoooooa!”

The dugout came apart.

The players rushed Suho all at once and beat on his helmet without mercy.

“Insane! He finally turned those legs he can’t control into a home run!”

“An inside-the-parker? Off that? The other guys are going to cry.”

Mark got him in a headlock and rubbed his hair into a mess with one fist.

“You! You! Honest to God! Wow… I’ve got no words!”

It was a play that genuinely left a man stammering.

Taylor couldn’t hide the smile at the corner of his mouth either.

Because that had been the highlight of the whole thing.

Lift your own team’s momentum and break the other side completely.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call that everything a player can be.

And it really was.

The other side had been left completely out of their minds by Suho’s play.

The game ended 13–4.

An overwhelming Quakes win.

And the same momentum carried into game two.

8–1.

The minor leagues play best of three, so the higher seed normally hosts both of the first two games.

And in the end they went down at home.

Suho’s two-game line was five for nine.

An average of .556, with a home run, five runs scored and an RBI.

Right after game two the locker room was full of heat.

The players hugged one another and sprayed water from their bottles in every direction, shouting.

The sullen faces that had called the playoffs overtime a week ago were nowhere to be seen.

This game didn’t guarantee any of them a salary or a promotion next year, of course.

But none of that particularly mattered.

They had won.

They had beaten the best team in the league on its own field, two games to none, and gone through to the final round. That on its own was a thrill.

These were professionals too.

Players who liked winning a great deal more than losing.

Then the locker room door opened and Taylor came in.

The sight of his players celebrating like that put a satisfied smile on his face.

He cleared his throat.

“Listen up!”

The noisy locker room went quiet in an instant.

Every eye went to the manager.

“You all did well.”

Taylor ran a slow look over the players and went on.

“But we’ve still got the championship series ahead of us. Since we’ve come this far, I think winning it wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

The silence didn’t last.

“Hell, let’s do it!”

Somebody’s shout set it off, and the locker room burst into cheering all over again.

Taylor nodded, satisfied, and then looked at Suho.

“Let’s have a word.”

Suho followed Taylor out of the locker room.

The two of them talked right beside the door.

“You did well. Honestly, we won because of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What’s this? No modesty this time?”

Taylor had naturally expected modesty.

It had always come before.

Suho scratched at the back of his head, a little embarrassed.

“Well. It’s the truth, honestly. I can’t accept praise that’s too much for me, but when I’ve done well I’d like to admit it and take it as it is.”

“Right. That’s a good attitude. Anyway, I called you out because I’ve got something to say.”

Suho asked with his eyes what it was.

Taylor went straight on.

“The players are full of drive. But I don’t think this has changed the way they think. What do you say?”

Suho answered with a serious face.

“Yes, sir. You’re right.”

Taylor’s eyes went round with confusion.

“Huh. Huh?”

“They’re happy that the team won. I don’t think they’ve reached the point of wanting to play for the team yet.”

Suho went on.

“We went through to the next round. Which means they’ve all got another chance to put up numbers. So that’s what they’re happy about.”

“Th— that so?”

There was still confusion in Taylor’s voice.

As though this wasn’t what he’d meant at all.

“So in the next round I’ll try harder, and make sure at least one of them ends up wanting to play for the team.”

“Wh— what more are you going to do?”

Couldn’t he just not?

That was what Taylor wanted to say.

Because what did it mean for this one to show any more drive than he already had?

He isn’t going to start throwing himself around more, is he?

And had Suho thrown himself around for two full games?

He had not.

If anything those moments had been few.

The hustle play after the bunt single.

And twice going to the ground on defense after that.

That was the whole of it.

You could say he had burned his body up on the inside-the-park home run as well, but it hadn’t been a play that put anyone’s heart in his throat.

The reason Suho hadn’t needed to throw himself around after that was simple.

The result had already tipped.

The other side had run up the white flag fast in the face of what he was doing.

More precisely, these playoffs weren’t an especially important game to most of the men on the other side either.

So with the game already gone.

It was only natural that nobody was overflowing with the urge to catch up.

The upshot was that Suho had taken the other side’s will away completely.

“I’ll go back in and finish getting ready for the trip home, sir.”

“Wait— wait a minute.”

Taylor caught him by the arm.

For a second the kid had run him over so thoroughly that he almost forgot what he’d come out to say.

“I’m going to write the letter regardless of how the next game goes.”

“The letter, you mean…”

“That’s right. When the season ends you’re going to Arizona.”

Suho’s face lit up.

He was happy. Genuinely, deeply happy.

The thing he had wanted so badly.

He had accomplished the first goal he’d set for himself.

Honestly, when he first set the goal of getting into the Arizona Fall League it had been half a fantasy.

He had simply set the bar high so he wouldn’t get lazy.

Put simply, it was there to make him do his best.

But then Suho’s face fell.

Because something had come up that he didn’t understand.

I haven’t finished the job yet.

So he thought about asking Taylor.

But he decided not to.

Whatever the result is, I’m going to finish what I was given.

Suho had no intention of letting something he didn’t understand simply pass.

He had no intention whatsoever of turning the letter down.

But it was better to have it clean, wasn’t it?

I’m going to make at least one of them play for the team.

Because that was a goal he had to reach as well.

Not letting even a small thing slide — it was a moment that showed you exactly how stubborn he was.

And there was somebody who heard that last exchange between Suho and Taylor from inside the locker room, just by the door.

Cash Meyer, who had been about to take his bag out to the bus ahead of everyone else.

He’s going to the Arizona Fall League?

End of Chapter 32