Pitch My Heart

2nd-Intro

"Yeji, over here" The manager calls me over.

I quickly jog my way to him. 

"This is Kyujin" he points at a young girl and I politely smile at her.

"She's gonna be our backup catcher so I want you two to spend today to get to know each other and figure out a way to be on the same page. I know it takes longer for you to adjust to catchers" he pats my shoulder before walking away. 

"Hi, I can't believe I get to play with you. I've been a fan since you were in college. It's an honor to catch for you" she looks and sounds enthusiastic. 

"How long have you been in the minor league?" I ask, remembering that Lia mentioned the backup catcher will be brought up from the minor league.

"This is my first year. I was recruited right out of high school" she proudly states and I can't help but frown because why would they bring up someone without a lot of experience. 

She must have notice my expression because her enthusiastic attitude disappears. 

"I'm just a backup so you probably won't have to worry about me a lot" I can tell her smile is not genuine. 

"I'm sorry if I looked disappointed. I was just surprised. I expected them to take someone with more experience considering that our catcher is injured then they just traded the previous backup" I try to explain myself. 

"Our new catcher requested a rookie for a backup catcher" the pitching coach, Seulgi, joins us.

"It was one of the conditions to get her to agree to play for us" she adds. 

"Why?" I ask. I probably offended Kyujin again but I'm very curious as to why the new catcher would want someone with such little experience. I mean I can understand someone that just graduated from college and also I'm curious why the organization is doing whatever she's asking. 

"You can ask her when she arrives but right now we need to get you to be comfortable with Kyujin. There's a good chance she's gonna be catching in your next game because you won't have an opportunity to practice with our new catcher" she explains. I am grateful that they understand me with my pitching but sometimes I do wonder if they find me difficult to work with. 

"Let's get warmed up first" Seulgi goes to her coach mode.

We do a lot arm stretching and massages to make sure that I'm healthy so I'm less likely to get injured. 

After our warmups. Seulgi instructs that I introduce my pitches to Kyujin first. I start off with my fastballs. I can throw three different fastballs, 4 seam, 2 seam and split finger fastball. This just means that the hitter will see the ball seams from the batter's box differently and the ball movement will vary too. I'm not the fastest in the league but it has a lot of movement so it's still not easy to hit. Second is my change up, it will appear like a fastball to hitters but the speed is slower than a fastball.

Once she gets familiar with my more simpler pitches, I introduce the pitches that usually get me in trouble because it has a lot more ball movement such as sinker balls, sliders and curve balls. 

If the catcher can't block it or can't catch it because it's outside of the strike zone then it usually gets recorded as a wild pitch. It makes it look like I have no control but I do. It's what makes me effective because my pitches are unpredictable so the hitters doesn't know what to expect. Unfortunately, catchers can have the same issue when it comes to my pitches because they don't trust me.

There's only been a few people that understands my pitching style. My catcher from high school, my catcher from college and Chaeryeong. I've been fortunate enough to meet people that connect with me well so I'm able to live my dream as a professional pitcher in baseball.