Genius Pitcher Hides 170Km [EN]: Chapter 222

#221. The Return of the Monster

“Shibal [a Korean curse word, similar to ‘fuck’], he’s still at it. Once you get taken advantage of, it never ends.”

“What? CI BAL?”

“Oh, no, no! It’s my… Ah, damn, what’s ‘혼잣말’ [honjitmarl – talking to oneself] in English? Myself! Talking to myself! Is that right?”

As Korean gamers swept across the global gaming scene, and K-dramas and Mukbang [eating broadcasts] content spread to various countries, the Korean curse word ‘Shibal’ also became widely known.

Lee Chan-ho hurriedly made excuses when he saw the Seattle catcher’s face contort fiercely at his carelessly uttered remark.

A forearm as thick as his thigh and a grimly menacing face… but more important than that was that it wasn’t a situation to argue with the catcher.

In his first year in the Big Leagues last season, Lee Chan-ho recorded a batting average of 0.285, an on-base percentage of 0.356, a slugging percentage of 0.401, 14 home runs, and 35 stolen bases.

Considering he was called the best hitter in Korea besides Han Su-hyeok, it was a disappointing performance in many ways.

The reason was the defensive shift.

He compensated for his innate lack of power with bat speed, and he favored pulling the ball to increase his extra-base hits.

As a result, the defensive shift had been a perpetual challenge for him since his days in Korea.

Fortunately, in Korea, he could sometimes break through it with sheer power.

But that wasn’t possible in the Big Leagues.

Pitches with speeds and power that couldn’t be compared to the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization] came flying in.

It was never easy to pull those pitches with power and break through the shift.

After a disappointing first season, Lee Chan-ho decided to change his hitting style.

He gave up stolen bases, gained weight to put more power into his hits, and invested time in learning to hit to the opposite field.

As a result of his efforts, he managed to produce quite a few opposite-field hits in the recent spring training games.

But it seems that other teams still see Lee Chan-ho as a hitter who can’t properly respond to the shift. It seems that such a blatant shift is being used from his first at-bat.

“Play!”

As game times increased due to the defensive shift, the Major League Baseball office placed restrictions on it.

A rule that at least two fielders must be positioned on either side of second base.

Before that rule was established, the shortstop was sometimes positioned between first and second base.

That meant the third baseman alone covered the area between third base and shortstop, and three infielders stood between first and second base.

Anyway, things are a little better than they were then, but it’s still frustrating.

The Seattle shortstop is standing almost glued to second base.

Only the third baseman is guarding the empty space between third base and shortstop.

‘Damn it.’

What makes the shift even more humiliating is that you get caught knowing exactly what the opponent is aiming for.

Whoosh

Whack

“Strike!”

A hard sinker that comes into the center of the zone and breaks back towards the batter.

That pitch, which allowed Jonah Burrows, Seattle’s starting pitcher today, to establish himself as a Big League starter, and which Lee Chan-ho was almost helpless against last season, was called a strike.

A pitch that he might have protested in Korea.

But now, Lee Chan-ho was not a KBO superstar but just an ordinary second-year player in the Major League.

Well, aside from that, there’s no point in arguing with the umpire since an AI-based ball-strike judgment system has been introduced anyway.

Cameras installed all over the stadium track the trajectory of the ball to determine whether it’s a strike.

Protesting the result will only bring ridicule.

‘Hoo… Let’s stay calm. Stay calm.’

Anyway, he picked out one ball well.

No matter how well you hit that last pitch, it’s a ground ball to the infield.

Whoosh

Whack

“Ball.”

Another hard sinker flew in on the same course.

Another reason Lee Chan-ho struggled after coming to the Big Leagues was that pitchers freely threw breaking fastballs.

Two-seamers, sinkers, cutters, and splitters with almost no difference in speed from the four-seam fastball.

Powerful pitches that were hard to hit and likely to become ground balls flew into every corner of the zone, and it was intimidating at first.

Fortunately, Lee Chan-ho had faced an even greater monster than that.

A monster named Han Su-hyeok who throws a 170 km/h fastball and a 165 km/h breaking fastball.

If he hadn’t had that experience, Lee Chan-ho’s adaptation to the Big Leagues might have been even more difficult.

Whoosh

Crack

“Foul!”

The reason modern baseball is said to be cruel is that it analyzes a player almost like dissecting them through various analysis equipment and statistical data, and then concentrates on attacking the weakest points based on the results.

A relentlessly persistent attack inside.

He took a four-seam fastball that came close to the center of the zone, perhaps due to a slight miscontrol, but unfortunately, he missed it, resulting in a one-ball, two-strike count.

At that moment, Lee Chan-ho’s intuition kicked in.

An intuition that came from the experience accumulated from playing baseball for a long time.

He had a strong feeling that this time, an outside pitch would come, not an inside pitch.

Whoosh

The prediction was correct.

A slider flew fiercely towards the outside, the farthest point from the batter.

Until last season, it was a pitch that would have been difficult to hit properly, or if he forced a hit, it would have been a weak ground ball.

But he was not the Lee Chan-ho of the past.

A new swing that he practiced with bone-carving pain throughout the winter.

The new swing, equipped to deal with outside pitches, stretched out powerfully towards that pitch.

Crack!

‘Got it!’

It was a well-hit ball that gave him goosebumps the moment he made contact.

As expected, my hunch was right.

The sweat he shed during the winter was never in vain.

Lee Chan-ho cheered as he watched the ball fly over the empty third base.

But,

Thud

“Cough?”

As Lee Chan-ho ran towards first base, he checked the direction of the ball once again, and at that moment, a black glove appeared out of nowhere and snatched the ball.

A bad feeling came over him.

The various humiliating moments he had suffered because of Han Su-hyeok in Korea flashed through his mind.

‘Damn it, damn it, daaamn it!’

Lee Chan-ho gritted his teeth and increased his running speed even more.

To catch that.

When did that shortstop, who was clearly in the shortstop position, follow him all the way to third base?

But that wasn’t important now.

A ball that was sure to be at least a double was caught in his glove.

Now, the problem was not second base but surviving at first base.

“Eek!”

Lee Chan-ho, who had mustered all his strength, was almost at first base when,

Whoosh

A white ball flew like a bullet from the third base side.

And,

Thwack

“Out!”

With a tremendous sound of impact, the umpire’s out call was made.

Lee Chan-ho, who had hit a double but was out at first base, looked around with a blank expression.

“Fuck……!”

First baseman Ty Johnson, who received Han Su-hyeok’s throw, took off his glove and made a face as if he was in excruciating pain.

A huge roar erupted from the stands.

“Wow!”

“103 miles? Crazy? Is that really right?”

“Yes! That’s it! Shibal! Yes! That’s what I bought that damn season ticket for!”

“Fucking Mariners! Fucking Han Su-hyeok!”

The spectators were screaming like crazy, looking somewhere.

Following that direction, Lee Chan-ho’s head turned quickly.

The throwing speed observed by the AI system.

There, the number 103 miles was clearly engraved. It was a figure that easily surpassed the previous Major League infield throwing speed record of 100 miles.

“This is crazy…….”

He was so dumbfounded that he wasn’t even angry.

Now he realized it again.

The fact that he would be playing in the same league as that monster again.

* * *

The time it takes for a ball thrown by a pitcher at 150 km/h to enter the catcher’s mitt behind home plate is about 0.4 seconds.

Let’s think about the case where the batter hits that ball.

Last season, the average exit velocity of Big League hitters was 150 km/h, and the highest was as high as 200 km/h.

Without the need for complicated calculations, it means that the time from when the ball leaves the pitcher’s fingertips to when the hit ball flies to the fielder is only about 1 second.

Last season, Josh Oliver, who single-handedly took care of Seattle’s shaky infield defense and secured the team’s starting shortstop position with his defense alone, thought.

‘What the hell is that guy? Does he have some kind of superpower?’

To counter Lee Chan-ho, a left-handed hitter and extreme pull hitter, he put on a strong defensive shift between first and second base.

And an outside slider flew towards the batter, who was in a one-ball, two-strike count.

Considering Lee Chan-ho’s hitting pattern until last season, it was a pitch that he would either watch and strike out, or force a pull and create a ground ball to second base.

But the prediction was wrong.

He didn’t know what he did, but Lee Chan-ho hit the outside pitch properly, and a fast ball with power flew towards the empty third base.

It was a completely unexpected development.

But what surprised the Seattle infielders, including Josh Oliver, was not Lee Chan-ho.

It was because of someone’s movement who had foreseen it.

Han Su-hyeok, who was filling the position of the shortstop attached to second base, started towards third base as soon as the pitch began.

And he picked up the ground ball flying like a bullet over third base as it was.

The ball that was about to become a double was sucked into Han Su-hyeok’s glove like that.

That alone was surprising enough, but what really surprised Josh was the next play.

As soon as he caught the ball, Han Su-hyeok regained his balance and threw a bullet-like throw towards first base.

Yes, it was a throw that could only be described as bullet-like.

The throw, which flew at an enormous speed, went into the first baseman’s glove, and the umpire’s out was declared.

Josh looked back at the scoreboard without realizing it.

103 miles, 167 km/h.

A roar that seemed to tear the stadium apart erupted from the spectators, and the batter, who had hit a double but was out at first base, stared at the sky with a look as if he had lost everything.

“Hey.”

“Um? Why.”

Josh, who had returned to his normal defensive position, asked Han Su-hyeok.

“How did you know? That the batter would push that ball… no, that the ball would go that way?”

“Hmm.”

Han Su-hyeok seemed to think about something for a moment at Josh’s question, then smiled and replied.

“It’s hard to explain in words, but if you play baseball for about 16 years, you’ll naturally know.”

“What?”

“Okay, it’s better to prepare in case the next batter tries a surprise bunt.”

Josh’s expression changed subtly at Han Su-hyeok’s casually thrown words.

Surprise bunt?

Could it be that the Angels guy had tried a surprise bunt last season?

At that moment when Josh couldn’t decide what to do,

Thud

“Cough!”

The batter really bunted on the first pitch.

A fairly well-placed bunt ball heading between the third baseman and the shortstop.

At that time, Josh, who missed the start timing, ran forward in an awkward posture,

“Get out of the way!”

Han Su-hyeok, who had appeared out of nowhere, scooped up the ball with his bare hand and threw it straight to first base.

Thwack

“Out!”

“Wow!”

“Damn it, crazy! I love it so much! Goddamn it! Han Su-hyeok! You’re the best!”

“We should have brought a guy like that a long time ago!”

“Finally, this team has a proper third baseman!”

Josh knew very well why the spectators were going so crazy.

The guy who guarded Seattle’s third base last season, who was now sold to the New York Mets, had recorded a whopping 41 errors in one season.

Considering the invisible errors, the harm to the team would have been much higher than that figure.

Nevertheless, the reason Seattle had no choice but to continue using such a third baseman was that he was the only .300 hitter on the team.

“Okay! Print more of that guy’s uniform quickly! Print it like crazy! I’ll buy it all!”

“Oppa! [Korean term used by females to address older brothers or male friends]”

The cheers of the spectators, who were quite docile when Josh first debuted in the Big League but had gone wild after years of dark ages, and the voice of a certain Asian female fan, whose exact meaning was unknown but somehow felt deeply resonant, echoed in the baseball stadium.

Suddenly, an inexplicable sense of relief washed over him.

Josh Oliver, who had to focus all his energy on directing the team’s infield as a shortstop last season and covering the lack of a third baseman, looked at someone with affectionate eyes.

There, Han Su-hyeok, with a nonchalant expression, showing no emotion even after cleanly handling two potential hits, was looking down and glaring at the batter.