Peaceful Bullpen Life [EN]: Chapter 125

※ 125. Button

The thirteenth opening game since my debut in professional baseball.

Strictly speaking, the opening game is just one of the 126 games in the pennant race [the series of games that determine the champion].

The same meeting as usual.

The same warm-up as usual.

The same national anthem ceremony as usual.

But can we attach the word ‘just’ to the symbolism that comes with the three letters of the opening game?

The first button of this month.

The first button of this season.

From a more macro perspective, the first button of the postseason.

The first game of the 2020 season, which began by bringing the Visco Runners to our home, was sailing smoothly, very smoothly.

The batting lineup quickly earned a large score, breaking the opponent’s will.

Hyeok-jun easily caught those opposing batters and dragged the game to the 9th inning.

Hyeok-jun took responsibility for the game alone, and the bullpen rested comfortably.

The result of the three beats falling perfectly in sync naturally led to victory.

8 to 0.

With Hyeok-jun’s opening game shutout as a pillar, the Wonha Challengers easily won the opening game of the 2020 season.

The first button.

The benefit of getting off to a good start from the first game of the year, not just a series, a week, or a month, is clearly greater than other teams.

Just one game.

I can say for sure as someone who works directly on the field, not just with the fans’ mindset of ‘It’s good to start by winning!’

This year is different.

Clack!

“Eyyy, nice!”

“Take a picture!”

“Clack, clack!”

It’s not just about recording good team results from the beginning of the season.

So what’s different?

Clack-!

The attitude is different. The attitude towards the game.

Waaaaah-!!

Yoon Seung-ju! Yoon Seung-ju! Yoon Seung-ju!

Back to Saturday’s game a week later. In the bottom of the 7th inning, with a one-point difference, Seung-ju brought the flow of the game back with a clutch home run with a runner on first base.

“Iyaaaak!!”

“Seung-ju, you’re awesome!!”

Six games from Saturday’s opening to yesterday, exactly one week later. The Wonha Challengers recorded 5 wins and 1 loss during this period.

From the start of the camp, the manager kept saying that he was worried that you guys might be too full of the good results from last year.

Good results?

That’s right, good results. After all, we were first in the regular season and runner-up in the Korean Series [championship series of the KBO League].

But the players’ thoughts seemed to be slightly twisted. The players didn’t seem to think of last year’s record as good results.

Regret. Or poison.

The players who received a scorecard close to anticlimactic were not full of it.

Rather, they gritted their teeth even more.

Then what about me?

“Han-ul, let’s go up.”

“Yes!”

I was more than the other colleagues, not less.

That slump in the early part of last season. If there hadn’t been that slump, wouldn’t the final result have been different?

“Hoo….”

No, no matter how I think about it, there’s no way, I thought, checking the scoreboard.

3 games, 3 innings, 0 hits allowed, 0 walks, 0 hit batsmen, 9 strikeouts, ERA 0 [Earned Run Average, a measure of pitching performance].

I don’t think, or rather, I don’t even think about whether I’ll burn out in the second half if I’m this good from the beginning.

Why?

Boom-!

“Hiii-!”

147km [approximately 91 mph].

It’s because I’m not putting in much effort. Even if I’m throwing lightly to control my pace by my standards,

Whoosh—

“Swing-.”

Good results follow.

The beginning is different from last year, when the results were not good even if I put all my effort into everything.

“Ugh!”

Boom-!

“Swing, swing-!”

I tried to throw a low fastball inside, but it slipped out of my hand and flew almost to the batter’s shoulder height.

The batter’s bat, which reacted unconsciously, also unconsciously crossed the home plate.

Watching Jo Hee-jin sigh and return to the dugout, I thought this game was quite lucky.

Luck.

Yes, this year, even the element of luck is with us from the start of the season.

After that, Go Myung-hyun, who entered the plate, also finished with five balls, and Nam Dong-geun, who appeared next, also finished with four balls.

Finishing the top of the 8th inning once again with three strikeouts, he achieved an amazing record of 12 strikeouts in 4 innings of the season.

Ding-!

[Clutch]

– 1 Inning No Runs Allowed (1/1)

– Reward – Splitter +2

Control – Top

Power – High

Stamina – Medium

Four-seam – 87

Curve – 83

Slider – 82

Splitter – 81+2=83

Changeup – 83

Sinker – 82

Traits

Detachment – I don’t care about any batted balls or situations.

Discomfort – Makes the opposing batter uncomfortable when they look at the pitcher in the batter’s box.

Comfort – Those who look at me feel comfortable.

Concentration – The number of objects that can be concentrated on increases.

After roughly checking the notification window that the quest was completed, I returned to the dugout.

Staggering, when I returned to our dugout, my teammates were already ready to take a selfie.

The one who has to hold that selfie camera is none other than,

“Hey, hey, clack!”

Right, me.

Clack!

As soon as the ceremony was completed, the players applauded again and cheered for the bottom of the 8th inning.

I know that my teammates will never stop cheering in any situation, but if the situation is only a one-point difference, the teammates will clap and shout even louder.

Thanks to that,

Clack-!!

“Turn, Seong-hyun, keep turning!!”

“Gi-seong, you come in too!!”

The Wonha Challengers’ victory now began to feel like a very natural basic.

* * *

The weather is nice.

I was sitting on the dugout chair, looking at the clear sky. The blue sky, the occasional clouds, the cool spring breeze.

Crunch, crunch

While I was chewing and swallowing the remains of the candy rolling around in my mouth,

“Ah, Han-ul.”

“Huh?”

I heard a heavy male voice that I hadn’t heard in a while.

“It’s been a while.”

“Ah, it’s been a while, Yoon-seong.”

Yeon Yoon-seong, the power analyst of the Wonha Challengers.

His huge physique, his voice that resonates thickly using that physique as a sound box, is someone you can’t forget once you see him in a way.

In the first place, this person is also a very kind person.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, I have a headache, so I came out to play a bit. Oh, would you like this?”

“Oh, thanks.”

Yoon-seong handed me one of the three identical canned coffees he was holding. I think it’s probably a 2+1 [buy two, get one free promotion] he bought at a convenience store….

Fizz—

“Do you have something to give you a headache?”

“We have a headache even when the team is doing well, and we have a headache even when we’re in the dumps.”

“I understand why you have a headache when you’re in the dumps… Ah, when you’re doing well, do you have to know why you’re doing well?”

“As expected.”

Nodding his head, Yoon-seong emitted a strong voice with a smiling face.

He says he has a headache, but he looks better than I thought. It’s not a lie that he has a headache, but seeing that he has such leeway [mental space and time]….

“So, are you getting a clue?”

“A clue… I don’t know if I can express this as a clue.”

Ahem, ahem.

“Why do you remember last year? It was a little later than now.”

“Of course I remember. I remember every word Yoon-seong said.”

“You must remember what I said about luck.”

“Of course. Is it still luck now?”

“Um….”

Yoon-seong didn’t answer my question right away and tilted his head slightly. He seemed to be thinking about how to explain it easily rather than hesitating to answer.

“Half luck. Half skill.”

“Half and half?”

“Huh?”

“Ah, no.”

Mouth, please be quiet.

“In Han-ul’s case last year, I can’t say 100%, but I still think so. The influence of luck was great.”

“Well… Yoon-seong’s story was right as a result. As Yoon-seong said, I soared in the second half.”

“Right?”

Unlike my can, which still has more than half left, Yoon-seong’s can, which was already empty, was neatly put into the recycling bin.

Fizz—

Then he opened another can.

“But this year, I can definitely see different aspects.”

“Me?”

“Not only Han-ul, but all Wonha players in general.”

“Oh oh oh…?”

There are four words that can divide the team’s power into large categories. Pitching, defense, hitting, and baserunning.

It depends on each person’s opinion, but I see them as 30, 20, 40, and 10, respectively.

The first part to be mentioned is the pitcher, which accounts for 30% of the team’s power.

“First of all, the pitchers’ control has improved a lot overall.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them. Seo Tae-woong and Choi Eun-gu are the ones who have shown the biggest growth.”

“Um….”

If you create a category called control among the Challengers pitchers, these two players would be ranked at the bottom.

Certainly, the defense time has been much shorter when these two have come out. In the first place, they are good pitchers in terms of power, so if they have basic control, they will be able to fly quite a bit.

“Besides these two players, they have become much more sophisticated overall. If you look at the pitching distribution, you can see it more clearly, but oh, I didn’t bring my tablet.”

Come to the power analysis room later, I’ll show you something fun.

Yoon-seong added a word and crushed another can of coffee.

“Our defense was already at the top of the league. And they’re maintaining it well, so pass. Baserunning… well. Baserunning is just maintaining. But even if it’s not at the top of the league, it’s maintaining the top ranks.”

If you’ve evaluated pitching, defense, and baserunning, there’s only one left,

“Then what about hitting?”

Right, hitting.

“It’s improved a lot.”

“But did our kids have anything else to improve?”

“No one can refuse improvement. Frankly speaking, even Park Hae-jin over there has parts that he needs to improve.”

“Well… yeah. That’s right.”

Well, unless you’re a player who hits 100% and hits a home run every at-bat, it’s natural to be desperate for improvement.

“The players who basically hit well in the Wonha lineup are already top-tier in the league.”

“Seong-hyun, or Gi-seong?”

“If I had to add, Moon Gyu-hak?”

“Gyu-hak?”

“If you only look at the absolute numbers, you might be puzzled, but if you put the frame of a catcher on it. Do you know? Moon Gyu-hak is currently ranked first in hitting WAR [Wins Above Replacement, a comprehensive baseball statistic] among catchers?”

“…Wow.”

I was purely surprised.

I just thought that I was more comfortable watching Gyu-hak at the plate than before, but he has improved that much.

“And Moon Gyu-hak hasn’t been good since this year. He’s been good since last year, right? That’s why he’s tied with Nam Gi-seong and Kang Seong-hyun.”

“Ah… the classification was originally good kids.”

“That’s right.”

“Then besides them… who else?”

“Everyone else besides them. All the hitting indicators have improved.”

If you take out those three people, you’re left with Myung-jin, Jin-hyung, Seung-ju, Seong-hun hyung, Seong-mun, and Hun-i.

“Ah, everyone’s doing quite well.”

“No, not the grades.”

“Yes?”

“Han-ul, we don’t understand exactly what the hitting theory is like or what the pitching theory is like, like the players or coaches.”

“Huh? You knew it well when I drank with you last time.”

It’s a story from a while ago, but I had a drink with Yoon-seong and shared an issue about my increase in speed.

I was really surprised then. Scap loading, L-drive, C-drive, toranding, hill landing.

“I only know the basics, only the basics. What is a brace off for hitters, what is using a barrel, what is a drop and drive for pitchers, what is posture maintenance. I only know what it is.”

“Ah….”

“What I want to say is, we don’t know what the players did or how they did it. However, we see the results, the results.”

“The results aren’t just simple grades, are they?”

“Of course. How is the extension of the pitchers, what is the number of rotations, what is the barrel hit ratio of the hitters, what is the contact ratio. That’s what I’m talking about. When I saw those things.”

Yoon-seong paused for a moment and smiled.

“I think I can have high expectations for what you want this year?”

The way an ajosshi [middle-aged man] with a much bigger body than me smiles playfully was quite a sight to see.

“If I’ve talked this far, you know what role Han-ul has to play, right?”

“My role….”

Most of what Yoon-seong has said so far is ultimately limited to this season. And this season has only been going on for about half a month.

No one knows in what direction this story will turn as half a month becomes a month, a month becomes two months, and half a year.

What I want is just to maintain it as it is now, as it is now. I don’t even want a better direction than this.

“What I have to do is obvious.”

And all I can do is help everyone so that I can maintain it as it is now, as it is now.

“Let’s do well.”

“Oh, of course.”