The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 235

235. After the Championship (8)

Early October.

The time was 11:23 PM. It was a season caught between the tail end of autumn and the early chill of winter.

Sweat trickled down Jo Yu-jin’s back.

Tension?

No, anxiety.

‘If the game ends like this, won’t something happen?’

If it were around 71 home runs, maybe it would be different. But it’s 73 home runs. The problem is that he rewrote that historic number. Anyone who loves baseball would have secretly hoped that the number 73 would be surpassed. Well, even if that weren’t the case, new records are always attractive.

Oh Min-yeop stepped up to the plate.

Most baseball fans already know that the KBO’s [Korean Baseball Organization] Golden Glove is different from the MLB’s [Major League Baseball] Gold Glove. Strictly speaking, the KBO’s Golden Glove is closer to the MLB’s Silver Slugger [award for best offensive player at each position]. However, at least last year, the KBO’s Golden Glove shortstop category was considered closer to the Gold Glove than the Silver Slugger.

0.261/0.354/0.371.

His OPS [On-Base Plus Slugging] was 0.08 lower than Oh Hyung-won of the Elitz, who had the hottest bat in the league. But the reason he was able to win the Golden Glove was probably because his hitting was full of ‘something invisible’ or ‘nutritional value’.

Basically, it is said that hitters who are stronger in scoring position and pitchers who are stronger in crucial moments are illusions. It is a typical small sample error, and even from a theoretical point of view, there is no reason to explode hidden power only at such moments.

But as with everything in life, there are often exceptions to every rule. At least from last year to this year, Oh Min-yeop was a man who belonged to that ‘exception’.

“I think I should receive a meritorious service award from the Marines later.”

“Pardon?”

“No, thanks to my performance in the match against the Marines the year before last, the Marines took Suwon with them. I think the Marines fans cheered for me a lot back then too. Now they’re cheering for me to do something again like this. Don’t you think?”

“Haha······.”

“In that sense, let’s do a win-win instead of a meritorious service award. The Marines don’t have much meaning in adding one more win right now anyway. You’re also a classmate of Choi Su-won. So let’s just go with a fastball right in the middle.”

“Haha, I’ve heard you have a very mischievous sense of humor.”

“Huh? I’m not kidding. It’s 100% sincere.”

Park Jae-hyuk on the mound wound up.

The treasured sword that made him who he is today.

A 149.1km/h cutter came flying in.

-Thwack!!

“Strike!!”

The ball barely caught the zone.

The umpire called a strike.

“Why is that senior’s ball so good today? If this happens, it’s completely over.”

Second.

Similar course, similar ball.

-Thwack!!

This time, the umpire’s hand did not go up.

The count was 1-1.

It wasn’t that he picked it off.

It was because he already knew that hitting a ball that came in like this would lead to a result that was not much different from the previous two hitters.

Third.

A strike on a ball that dug in a little more inside.

And the fourth, a foul.

Fifth, another foul.

The tension of the spectators watching the game gradually increased.

The count was still 1-2.

Park Jae-hyuk threw his sixth ball.

A meatball that was quite centered.

Under the simple truth that there is no pitcher who can always put the ball in the desired course, it was the ball that Oh Min-yeop had been persistently waiting for.

-Clang!!

But even in the midst of that, Park Jae-hyuk proved why he had only given up 14 runs while pitching a whopping 66.1 innings. Even though it was centered, the filthy tailing avoided a direct hit.

A fairly fast hit between 2nd and 3rd base.

Kang Ra-on caught the hit. The ball with a strong spin turned inside the glove. Kang Ra-on calmly pulled the ball out and quickly threw it to 1st base.

“Ah······. Why is Kang Ra-on’s defense so clean at this timing!!”

“No, Gyu-man misses catches every day, but why does he catch that so well!!”

“I mean!! If he shits with a 2-run home run, huh? He has to fix it. He should make some catching errors here. Huh?”

The timing was almost simultaneous.

The umpire’s arms went up.

“Safe!!”

Oh Min-yeop, who stepped on first base, clenched his fist.

People sent him generous cheers.

“Yeah, you!! I’ve been believing in you since you beat us in the past.”

“To be honest, I like Oh Min-yeop and Choi Eu-ddeum the most from Phoenix. To be honest, it’s all thanks to them that Su-won is playing for our team now.”

Of course, there was no challenge.

The only person who frowned in the stadium was Park Jae-hyuk on the mound. Manager Kim Dae-cheol in the dugout also clenched his fist in his pocket without anyone knowing.

‘Nice.’

Third batter Jung Byung-cheol came to the plate.

He was one of the people whose future changed the most due to Choi Su-won’s regression. He was originally drafted by the Marines in the first round of the 2025 draft and reliably guarded the Marines’ home for 17 seasons until the 2042 season. He was Su-won’s strongest MVP [Most Valuable Player] competitor, and after Su-won left for the MLB, he won the MVP three times. Ah, of course, as can be seen from the example of Lee Gyu-man, it was impossible to make the Marines win with just the MVP, so of course he had no championship experience until Su-won regressed.

Frankly speaking, Phoenix and the Marines were both hopeless. There was no difference in that there was no answer to winning the championship. However, for Jung Byung-cheol personally, coming to Phoenix instead of the Marines was quite fortunate.

Lim Gwang-hyung, a pitcher who had experienced the top level of the major leagues and returned, was a very good mentor, and Chae Gwang-min in the team was also skilled enough to help him with his hitting skills.

Before Su-won went back in time, Jung Byung-cheol in the 2027 season was a very promising prospect. However, in this changed history, Jung Byung-cheol was quite close to the 2029 season, when his potential originally blossomed.

In addition, Jung Byung-cheol was also full of the desire to achieve something now, because he knew better than anyone what kind of mindset his most respected ace, Lim Gwang-hyung, had for today’s game. And all those elements were mixed and mixed together and finally became one.

Two outs, runner on 1st base.

Park Jae-hyuk on the mound wound up greatly, regardless of whether there was a runner on first base or whether he ran or not. In the past KBO atmosphere, it would have been a big deal, but in some situations, it is now more effective for KBO fans to throw the best ball to the hitter without paying attention to the runner, and now is that timing.

The first pitch was a 149.3km/h cutter.

It was definitely not a mistake.

A very good ball that caught the border line exquisitely. It was one of the best balls he had thrown today.

-Clang!!!

The end of the ball was still dirty, so it couldn’t be said that he hit it perfectly. But the power in that clean swing was strong enough to ignore even a slight error.

The high fly ball flew high.

As always, Lee Joo-hyuk ran.

Back, further back.

His eyes glanced at the hit.

‘Will this work?’

He wasn’t sure.

But since when has he been predicting hits and defending so well? First, run and see. That’s how Lee Joo-hyuk’s body arrived at the fence faster than anyone else. On top of that, he jumped high, adding to the running power.

He often fails easy defenses so often that he is said to be not even human, but thanks to that reputation, he sometimes succeeds in defenses that are not really human. The Marines fans watched him with anxiety, wondering if he might succeed.

But it was too fast.

His glove stirred in the air, and the hit passed at a subtly slower pace.

[He······, it went over!! Home run!!! Jung Byung-cheol home run!! Jung Byung-cheol’s two-run home run!! Now the score is back to 13:13!! Top of the 9th. Two outs!! Jung Byung-cheol brings the game back to square one here!!]

Lee Joo-hyuk scratched the back of his head.

Well, it was almost impossible to catch the hit in the first place, but if it were normal, he would have heard some curses from here and there, but instead of curses, praise and applause flew. It was a difficult experience to receive applause after failing to defend.

13:13

In that number, Phoenix’s fourth batter, Chae Gwang-min, came to the plate.

The atmosphere was already on their side. Now that it has come to this, they have no choice but to take the game.

That’s what Chae Gwang-min thought.

And he swung his bat boldly.

-Clang!!

And a clean ground ball out.

Chae Gwang-min looked forward to the 10th inning of extra innings with a disappointed heart.

Change of attack.

Jo Yu-jin came to the plate.

The expression ‘his whole body creaked’ was a perfect fit.

Just graduated from high school at the age of 19. He started as a catcher in 89 games with his body that was not yet complete. It was a great thing. Of course, it was a very unfortunate thing that it didn’t seem so great because there was such an absurd monster next to him.

Jo Yu-jin’s expression was truly determined as he threw off his heavy equipment and stood at the plate.

“Hey, wouldn’t it be a complete jackpot if I hit a walk-off home run?”

“Walk-off?”

“Yeah. Walk-off [a home run that ends the game in the batter’s team’s favor].”

“Jjo Yu, you?”

Of course, Jo Yu-jin himself was half joking, but Choi Su-won’s lukewarm attitude, as if it was nonsense that was not worth even a moment’s consideration, was not to his liking.

Now that it has come to this, I will show you properly!!

-Whoosh!!

“Strike!! Out!!”

He thought about showing it for a moment, but the result was a clean swing and strikeout. Still, Jo Yu-jin stepped down from the plate, comforting himself that it was an honorable death for his teammate.

And finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for, Choi Su-won’s at-bat, returned.

73 home runs.

Frankly speaking, there was no guarantee that he would break the record just because his at-bat returned. No. If you only calculate the probability, the probability of not breaking the record was much higher.

But even so, the Marines fans prayed more for Choi Su-won’s last at-bat than for the team’s victory in the last game of the season. Is it because they are fools who still support a team that has never won the regular season in the 45 years since its founding? Or are they fools who can’t calculate enough to keep putting money into the fall baseball savings of a team that hasn’t won a championship in 35 years since its last championship in 1992, and hasn’t even been to the Korean Series [KBO championship series] in the 21st century?

No, it wasn’t.

It was respect for the way that young player, who was only nineteen years old, had shown throughout the year, and it was faith in the great record he would write.

And superstars never betray expectations at moments like this.

As if to smash the flying ball.

So fiercely that his back foot was slightly lifted by the strongly stepped front foot.

In a form very similar to the batting that Choi Su-won used when he was 17 years old, when his body was still a mess after going back in time.

-Clang!!

And the hit that flew like that did not fall on the field.

[74!!]

Late at night, close to 12 o’clock.

To the fans who had bothered to protect the front of the stadium in this uncomfortable place, braving this chilly weather, even though it would have been okay to watch the game comfortably at home.

The home run ball that rewrites baseball history fell.

It was the sixth out-of-stadium home run in Sajik Stadium history.