Pitcher’S End, Batter’S Start [EN]: Chapter 19

End of Pitcher, Start of Batter – Episode 18

Lee Jungwoo sighed.

It wasn’t because of the intense weight training he underwent after a short break in Miami.

Nor was it the process of his muscles twisting and stubbornly regenerating, pushing him to his limits.

He could endure all that.

What troubled him was the dining table.

‘Ah, I want to eat kimchi.’

Meat.

The delicious meat, prepared according to the diet prescribed by the physical trainer he found in Miami, had no salt and only a rich meaty aroma.

Of course, he liked it.

Unless you’re a strict vegan.

No one dislikes meat.

But that’s only for a day or two.

Eating meat grilled without any sauce every single day was more grueling than any training.

It’s called bulking up [gaining muscle mass through a high-calorie, high-protein diet].

But it’s not just about gaining weight.

You have to maintain muscle mass while doing it.

If you just blindly bulk up, you’ll end up as a big, huge, and clumsy mass.

Sluggers may seem slow at first glance, but they are full of hidden muscles.

‘Especially since I’m a shortstop, I need to focus even more on muscles.’

Since he needed to be agile and athletic, Lee Jungwoo’s bulking up had to focus on muscle rather than fat.

Speed ultimately comes from muscle.

So, a diet that almost completely excluded carbohydrates and even salt, focusing only on meat, suited Lee Jungwoo’s situation well, but…

It was still tough.

He did have salads on the side, but those also had no dressing.

It was just cooked over a fire.

The diet, which was almost like eating raw food, made Lee Jungwoo sick of it in just a few days.

“Even if it’s hard, eat it.”

“Yeah, I have to. I have to eat it even if it’s hard. To get better.”

The reason he endured was ultimately a desire for improvement.

Lee Jungwoo wanted to do better.

Going further, he wanted to do better than other players.

Then he had to at least do what others were doing.

Even if he couldn’t do more.

He had to do at least similarly.

At least, that’s what Lee Jungwoo thought.

‘Let’s eat, let’s eat.’

Lee Jungwoo forced down the food that wouldn’t even go down, gagging at the meaty aroma that was now ingrained in his mouth.

He stubbornly chewed and swallowed his quota.

In time, it would become nourishment for the future through strenuous training.

‘Five pounds in five days. It’s worth enduring.’

A solid, high-quality mass of five pounds had been added to his body.

A fairly rapid pace.

If the rate of weight gain had been slow, he would have really wanted to cry.

But it was a relief.

‘I’m supposed to do Pilates today, right?’

Lee Jungwoo finished scraping the remaining food off his plate, reminding himself of his schedule for the day.

####

While Lee Jungwoo was feeling the pain of his meals, a man was intently replaying a video of him.

Batting stance. Body rotation. Weight shift and impact. And the speed and angle of the batted ball.

The man, watching everything without missing a single detail, scratched his beardless chin.

And grumbled.

“I can’t get a feel for it at all. What am I supposed to teach him?”

When the offer first came, he didn’t think much of it.

Since he was a batter who had just switched from being a pitcher, he thought he would just teach him the basics.

But when he actually looked at it, that wasn’t the case.

Although the sample size was small, judging by his performance alone, it wouldn’t be strange if he went up to Double-A [the second-highest level of Minor League Baseball] next year.

He had hit seven home runs in a month, so that said it all.

‘It’s hard to find weaknesses because there aren’t enough videos since he’s in the minors. If I had to find one, it would be his awkward weight shift. But that will eventually become natural as he gets his stance right and swings. It’s a shame to just correct that….’

What he learned was stealing.

He was a baseball player until high school.

And even after quitting as a player, he chose this path and started working.

He taught little league kids and occasionally taught minor league players to make a living.

He had landed a real job after a long time.

It was too bad to just let it pass by like he had done until now.

‘If I think of him as a beginner, his performance bothers me, and if I do the opposite, that’s also ambiguous.’

It was hard to come up with a good plan.

The man, Andrew Lubin, roughly scratched his head and ended up replaying the video that he had already watched dozens of times.

‘First of all, his form is quite extreme. It’s at the level of openly saying he’s going to hit it over the fence no matter what. But since the results are good, it must mean that it suits the player well. His batting average is good, and the launch angle is good too.’

It’s a batting stance that can never produce a good batting average, but his batting average is high.

Even considering the fluke of the first season, it must mean that it almost perfectly suits the player.

Andrew Lubin thought so.

‘Then should I leave the basic stance as it is and moderately compensate for the shortcomings, and focus on things like balance?’

As Andrew Lubin slowly began to get a grasp of things, he replayed the video once again with an idea that struck him like lightning.

And he narrowed his eyes.

Something plausible theory was drawn like a picture in his head.

He felt like he knew roughly how to make Lee into a hitter.

Andrew Lubin stared blankly at the screen, but the content didn’t register.

There was no room for it to squeeze into his complicated mind.

‘I’ll have to see him in person to know for sure… but if my guess is right… I’ll need a persuasion process too.’

His performance is good.

Not many people would say okay if the trainer told them to fix it.

He’d be lucky if he didn’t get fired.

That’s why he was cautiously moving, but he couldn’t let go of the thought that came to his mind.

####

“Say hello, this is Mr. Lubin, the hitting trainer you’ve been waiting for so long. Mr. Lubin, this is the batter you’ll be teaching, Jungwoo Lee.”

At Mark’s introduction, Andrew Lubin reached out his hand and greeted him.

“Nice to meet you, Lee. I’m Andrew Lubin, the hitting trainer who will be helping Lee during the fall and winter.”

“I’m Jungwoo Lee. Nice to meet you too.”

Lee Jungwoo shook hands with the man in front of him and swallowed hard.

Andrew Lubin.

The slightly younger man than he remembered was the most important key point in the path he would take.

If he could properly guide Lee Jungwoo with the skill he used to fix the Phillies’ nemesis.

The road ahead would be smooth.

If not, he would have to go around a lot.

“Let’s start by making a schedule. I heard you’re doing weight training and bulking up at the same time.”

“Yes, will that be a problem?”

“No, it’s a good decision. Lee is definitely underweight for his height right now. Bulking up is essential for a good hit.”

Lee Jungwoo, who had been worried that he might have done something unnecessary, nodded in relief at his words.

“Can I see you hit a little now? I’ve only seen it in videos, but I need to see it in person to make an accurate judgment….”

As he trailed off, looking cautiously, Lee Jungwoo was reminded once again that he had really regressed.

‘He’s definitely not seasoned yet. Looking at him being so cautious with a minor league player.’

It was quite amusing to see the younger version of the super trainer who had heated up the bodies of superstars and major league teams before his regression.

Lee Jungwoo smiled faintly to reassure him and nodded in agreement.

“I’d love to. Let’s go to the training ground right away. Mark, are you ready?”

“Just bring your body right away.”

“I’ll toss for you.”

They headed to the training ground together, not even an hour after meeting.

“How is it? Not bad, right? I spent a lot of money to get this place, so use it to the fullest. Mr. Lubin, please help him without holding back.”

Andrew Lubin’s face softened a little as he was satisfied with the good training facilities, enough to understand Mark’s confidence, but he stiffened again, as if feeling a little burdened.

As Lee Jungwoo picked up a bat, he also brought one of the boxes of baseballs placed on one side of the training ground and stood next to Lee Jungwoo.

“Don’t be conscious of me, just swing naturally as you would in a game.”

“Yes.”

At his order, Lee Jungwoo mind-controlled himself.

He hypnotized himself.

The small training ground felt like the batter’s box on the ground.

So, his unique stance, which had given up on contact as usual, was naturally formed.

Watching it, Andrew Lubin frowned slightly, then threw the balls one by one.

Toss batting [a training drill where a coach gently tosses balls to the batter].

A training method mainly used when taking a batting stance like tee batting.

It doesn’t improve the sense of a real game like free batting, but it has various effects.

Lee Jungwoo had been doing it steadily since he switched to being a hitter, so he easily hit the tosses that Andrew Lubin threw.

The ball flew around the training ground with a loud noise.

‘Hmm, the speed is getting faster and faster-‘

The speed of the toss is getting faster and faster.

At first, Lee Jungwoo easily hit good balls, but as the timing got faster, little by little, there were more and more swings and mis-hit balls.

“Huff- Huff-”

Quickly moving body.

Lee Jungwoo breathed out his tired breath and hit the balls that Andrew threw until the end.

The toss stopped only after he had emptied one box, and Andrew Lubin nodded briefly.

“It’s a very extreme swing form, just like I saw in the video. It’s a batting style that leans towards a closed stance and slightly crouches the upper body to aim for maximum home runs… It’s not bad. It’s not bad.”

It’s not bad.

It sounds like a good thing at first glance, but Lee Jungwoo knew the hidden meaning in it.

It meant there was something to fix.

“Are you saying there’s a problem?”

“First of all, it’s not good for contact. You can’t see the ball properly.”

“I know that too.”

Lee Jungwoo was a little suspicious.

Andrew Lubin, who was bothering to say something that even he knew, was perhaps, as he had worried, starting to think that he didn’t have the skills he wanted.

“Hold on a second….”

On top of that, he was suddenly asking for his hand.

Lee Jungwoo, whose suspicion had deepened even further, took off his batting gloves with a slightly reluctant expression.

After wiping away the sweat that had become soaked from toss batting, he held out his hand.

Andrew Lubin meticulously fiddled with his left hand.

‘What is it? Why is he doing this?’

He didn’t know what he was thinking, but Lee Jungwoo endured it steadfastly.

Since the situation was like this, only Mark was making a bewildered expression.

It wasn’t very pleasant to see the hitting trainer he had brought with so much effort groping his player’s hand.

“Did I bring the wrong person….”

As Mark muttered that, Andrew Lubin, who had finally let go of his hand, seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, then said his impressions.

“I can finally understand Lee’s unusually high slugging percentage [a measure of a batter’s power]. And his high batting average too.”

“Yes?”

Lee Jungwoo tilted his head at Andrew Lubin, who was suddenly mentioning his performance after touching his hand.

Lubin added an explanation to that.

“Lee has very strong wrists. Maybe he has naturally thick ligaments and bones.”

Wrist strength is an important factor for a batter.

If your wrist is made of glass, no matter how fast your batting speed is, the batted ball won’t go far.

Punching power, that is, the power of hitting, is most strongly related to wrist strength.

Andrew Lubin, who said that it was good, took a deep breath for a moment and then said in a calm tone.

“At first, I thought Lee’s unusually high slugging percentage was due to his extreme batting form. But after seeing it in person, I think his wrist strength is a bigger factor. At this level, he can hit home runs even without such a batting form.”

“Then, are you saying I should change my batting form?”

At Lee Jungwoo’s question, Mark, who was strict, was startled and exclaimed.

He’s doing well, but he’s going to change his batting form; he’s definitely against it.

“Lee, wait a minute. Mr. Lubin, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Lee has already adapted to his batting form, and the results are good. There’s no reason to change it-”

“Yes, of course, the batting form has played a part. If Lee is a batter who can hit 30 home runs, the extreme batting form will have the effect of hitting five more.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Five home runs.

Mark thought that the batting form was very effective because those five home runs can add millions of dollars to his salary.

But Andrew Lubin shook his head firmly as if he was absolutely not.

“Compared to the benefits of changing the batting form, it’s by no means worth it.”

Andrew Lubin, who spoke bluntly, made Lee Jungwoo’s eyes light up.

He had been very suspicious of his clumsy appearance.

The current appearance was almost identical to the one he had seen in interviews and documentaries before his regression.

“If Lee continues to grow like this and goes to the big leagues, he’ll probably hit around .220 with 20 home runs every year. Of course, that’s a good record.”

20 home runs in the big leagues.

Considering that he’s a shortstop, he might be able to sign a multi-million dollar contract in free agency [when a player is free to sign with any team].

But Andrew Lubin saw more than that.

“But if you create a new batting form that is easy to make contact with, you can definitely do more than that.”

More than 20 home runs.

That’s an All-Star.

Andrew Lubin saw the potential of an All-Star in Lee Jungwoo.

Lee Jungwoo, who saw his passionate eyes, calmed down the excited Mark and then, making eye contact with him, asked, “What are the chances?”

“…Even if you create a new batting form, there’s no guarantee that it will suit Lee. It’s probably low.”

High risk, high return.

It’s like gambling; if you’re someone who likes stability, it’s not a very preferable choice.

‘If I wanted stability in the first place, I wouldn’t have started as a batter.’

Lee Jungwoo had already gambled once.

‘I don’t know if you’re the Lubin I know, or if I really have that potential. Since I’m already on the tiger’s back, it’s good to run to the end.’