Peaceful Bullpen Life [EN]: Chapter 174

Basic

Instead of thinking, ‘Why is he suddenly acting like this?’ I thought,

“He’s been doing that since earlier. How are you supposed to hit that!”

I figured something was bound to explode eventually.

I just didn’t expect Sung-hyun to be the one to set it off.

“Are you sure? Are you sure it came in?”

Sung-hyun truly deserves to be proud of the word ‘pro’.

He concentrates and does his best in every single play.

He acknowledges the fans and treats them as more important than himself.

He respects the opposing team and believes it’s polite to do his best.

Moreover, he’s known for his good manners towards the umpires who oversee the game.

Every time he steps into the batter’s box, every time he steps on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base, he greets the umpire in charge of each base.

He usually tries to accept even pitches that are quite far outside the strike zone. *It must have come in, so they called it. I’ll just hit it.*

Regarding outs and safes, he does appeal since the team’s victory is on the line. But if there was no video replay, he probably would have just gone back to the dugout.

That kind of guy,

“It grazed it.”

“It didn’t hit the line, it didn’t curve, how can it graze it when it goes out like this!”

It’s really rare to see him protesting so vehemently.

“No, how can you call that a strike when it didn’t even graze it!”

“I called it because it grazed it and came in, why else would I call it!”

“Hey, hey, Sung-hyun. Let’s go in, let’s go.”

Feeling that things might escalate if left alone, the manager hurriedly ran out to stop Sung-hyun, but,

“No, just a minute. You did that with Hoonie *hyung* [older brother or male friend] earlier, and when Hyuk-joon was pitching, is something going on today? Huh?!”

Sung-hyun, who was completely pissed off, couldn’t hear him.

“Are you even watching properly?! Are you not watching!!”

And usually when this happens,

“Ejection!”

The batter gets ejected,

“Wait a minute, why are you ejecting him! You’ve been calling it weird since earlier!”

“What do you mean weird! Are you talking back right now?”

“What? Talking back? Are you my superior? Huh?!”

Even the manager, who was protecting our player, gets pissed off,

“Ejection!”

The manager also gets ejected.

“Manager, first of all… huh?”

“No, let go!”

“Ah, Manager… we’ll handle it.”

Eventually, the coaches stepped in to stop Sung-hyun and the manager, and the situation was brought under control.

“…It’s a bit much today.”

“There’s gonna be a firestorm in the community today.”

In the still unsettled atmosphere, Ki-sung grounded out to shortstop, ending the inning with three outs.

“Go and rest. You worked hard.”

“…Yes.”

Hyuk-joon, who loves baseball and loves throwing the ball, is reluctant to go up to the mound.

“Wow… what am I gonna do later. I’ll be going up too.”

After the last two games, including Monday’s rest day and the rain-delayed game, he hasn’t pitched in the last four days, so there’s a high probability he’ll go up today to check his condition.

Moreover, if the score remains a close 0-0, the probability of him going up increases even more.

While worrying about what would happen in about an hour, I watched Hyuk-joon’s practice pitches for a moment,

“Play!”

The umpire in question pointed at Hyuk-joon and signaled the restart of the game.

*Pow-!*

“Strike-!”

He doesn’t call strikes where he should. But he also calls strikes where he shouldn’t.

Even if this kind of algorithm is formed,

*Whoosh-!*

“Swing-.”

There’s no reason to take a risk by throwing into the ‘ball’ zone.

If he calls it a strike, it could be a strategy that catches them off guard, but what if he doesn’t call it?

Therefore,

*Whoosh―*

“Swing, out-.”

The strategy naturally changes to an aggressive one.

You can’t relax where you should be relaxing. You have to put more effort where you need to put in effort.

This inevitably,

*Thwack-!*

“He’s lost his power.”

Becomes a factor that excessively drains the pitcher’s stamina.

In the bottom of the 7th inning, after allowing a leadoff walk for a similar reason, he gave up a two-run home run to Yang Jin-woo, the 7th batter.

“Let’s get Seok-min up.”

“Ah, yes!”

At that point, Hyuk-joon’s mission ended, and Seok-min *senior* [older or more experienced person] took his place.

“Hyuk-joon, you worked hard.”

I patted Hyuk-joon on the back as he returned with a frustrated expression.

“Aah… what’s with this.”

I feel bad for him.

He practiced his changeup so hard, but he couldn’t even use it properly because of the umpire.

So he had to put in a lot of effort, and even gave up a meaningless home run in the 7th inning.

He even had to come down because of the atmosphere, even though he wanted to pitch more out of spite.

If I hadn’t thought much about it, I would have said something like, ‘You did well so far, the future is more important,’ to Hyuk-joon right now.

“Do you now realize your shortcomings?”

“Yes?”

“Your shortcoming is none other than your mentality.”

“Ah….”

But it didn’t seem like it would be helpful to say that.

“Ah, Teacher. Then what should I do to improve that mentality?”

“Go ice yourself and bring back some ice water on the way.”

Hyuk-joon is a resilient guy.

It’s not like he hit rock bottom to consider resilience,

“Yay!”

Rather, that’s why he can easily brush it off and shake it off.

Watching Hyuk-joon, who had recovered his mood with nonsense, go behind the dugout, I watched Seok-min *senior’s* pitching.

The uncertainty of not calling strikes where he should, and calling strikes where he shouldn’t.

I don’t know who assigned Seok-min *senior* to pitch,

*Thwack―*

“Short dash!”

It’s quite a good strategy.

A pitcher who makes you want to hit, rather than judging whether you should hit or whether you can hit.

In a situation where neither the battery [pitcher and catcher] nor the hitters can be sure about the strike zone, the uniqueness of being an underhand pitcher will definitely work to their advantage.

Curving, twisting, winding, escaping, rising.

*Tick―*

“Second!!”

“Maaaa, maaaaaack!!”

Look, even now, if you look at the batter’s expression after confidently swinging, it’s full of regret, like, ‘Ah, why did I hit that?’

“…Hmm.”

As I was watching Seok-min *senior’s* pitching with interest,

“Han-wool, just stand by for now.”

“Ah, yes.”

I was told to stand by for the 8th inning.

“The 8th inning, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yep.”

The batting order is good in the next attack, so I think we can at least get one point, and if we’re lucky, we might be able to tie the score somehow…….

“Gun-young, get ready!”

“Yeeeeeeah!”

I brushed off the wishful thinking and started preparing for the appearance.

Stretching my arms and legs, twisting my waist,

*Pow―*

Lightly throwing a few balls.

“Hmm… how should I approach this, then.”

To talk about my current pitching style, it’s a style of slowly building up with precise control and then exploding with powerful stuff at the end.

However, with my most powerful weapon, ‘precise control,’ being half-sealed, this strategy seems to need a slight modification.

In other words,

“Sinker.”

“Ah, sinker!”

A cheap trick.

*Whump-!*

Maybe… the sinker I just threw was in the mid-140km/h range. If I’m being generous, the late 140km/h range.

“Huh?”

“Why?”

“Aren’t you not warmed up yet?”

“No? Why?”

“It seems a bit slow.”

“Ah.”

On average, it’s in the early 150km/h range, and I’ve even clocked a maximum speed of 155km/h with my sinker.

As the one who catches the ball almost every day, he can naturally raise the issue.

“Are you not feeling well anywhere?”

“I’m fine, I’m alright.”

Whether I’m not feeling well anywhere, whether I’ve lost my feel for throwing, whether there’s something wrong.

“Slider. Short.”

“Yep!”

*Whump!*

Rather, that’s what I was aiming for.

“Wow, what was that just now? Was that a cutter?”

“Similar, right?”

Similarly, I also minimize the angle of the slider as much as possible. The speed should be around max 150km/h.

What else… is there anything else I need?

Standing behind the plate with my legs crossed, I looked at Gun-young and thought for a moment.

Among the weapons I brought for today’s operation, is there anything else I should bring? Is there anything I left out? Is there anything else I should take?

“…Ah.”

A changeup would be good.

“Changeup. Drops a lot.”

“Yay!”

I’m planning to save the curve as much as possible for today’s operation because the speed variance is too great.

A splitter would be good too, but the sinker will be more useful today.

Fastball? Of course, I’ll throw the fastball.

*Thud-thud―*

“Wow, good. It drops well!”

A changeup that I throw by pushing with my palm like a palmball, not a changeup that I throw by flicking with my fingers like a fastball.

Because I inserted it deeper towards the palm than the grip I usually use, it dropped with a much larger drop.

With this, the setup is complete.

“What time is it….”

Only after warming up like crazy did I notice the situation on the ground.

“…Oh.”

It seems like the wishful thinking I had before warming up wasn’t in vain, we’ve already scored a point and there are runners on both corners.

The only downside is that there are two red lights on [two outs].

Still, if there’s one trustworthy thing,

“That drunk bastard, you were drinking yesterday too. Show some alcohol power….”

It’s that Seung-joo is at the plate.

It hasn’t been long since he stepped into the batter’s box, so there are still no yellow or green lights on the scoreboard.

The first pitch is,

*Whump-!*

“Ball-.”

A high fastball for a ball.

Clap clap clap clap!

“Ah, good eye, good eye!”

“Good eye, good eye!”

Ah, I don’t care, our team is the best! Our team members are just the best!

Even though it wasn’t ambiguously high, but just blatantly high from the start, the team members in the dugout shouted with all their might to cheer for Seung-joo.

The second pitch is,

*Tick!*

“Foul-.”

A foul created by stubbornly pulling out a fastball that was about to go into the catcher’s mitt.

Clap clap clap clap!

“Ah, good timing, good timing!!”

“Good swing, good swing!”

It was a blatantly late timing.

Because of that, the swing became a completely spread-out swing.

In the current ball count, it’s more advantageous not to swing than to swing like that.

Nevertheless, the team members clapped again, and shouted again to cheer for Seung-joo.

Clap clap clap clap!!

“Seung-joo, let’s go, let’s go!!”

“You’re gonna hit it this time, you’re gonna hit it!!”

As if they would be fined if they didn’t.

Seung-joo briefly took his right foot out of the batter’s box and seemed to be calculating the timing by waving his bat around.

The fastball from earlier clearly fell into the category of a mistake.

It’s definitely not a ball that Seung-joo, who has an absurd self-buff in scoring situations, would miss.

The fact that he missed it means that something was creaking in an unexpected area.

What could it be?

“You can hit it, the swing from earlier was good!”

“Just swing, just swing!!”

Having roughly finished his calculations, Seung-joo put his right foot back into the batter’s box as the team members’ cheers grew hotter again.

He swirled the bat he was holding tightly in his right hand in front of his face, gripped it tightly, put both hands on his left shoulder, and relaxed his core by leaning back once.

Seung-joo waited for the pitch with the bat lying on his left shoulder. After the battery finished exchanging signs, he slightly raised the bat and wiggled it.

As the pitcher raised his right foot, as his right foot stretched out, as his left hand briefly brushed past,

*Thwack-!*

Seung-joo’s bat turned much faster than that.

“Waaaaaah-!!”

“Run, Byung-chun, come on in!”

Because it was hit as a liner, it was impossible to go over the fence, but it perfectly split the gap in right-center.

Byung-chun, who was on 3rd base, was practically guaranteed to score. In the same sense, tying the score was also practically guaranteed.

The issue is,

“Everyone come in, Jin-hyung, you come in toooooo!!”

“Jin-hyung, runnnnn!!”

Whether Jin-hyung, who was on 1st base, would come in or not. Whether we would reverse the score or not [take the lead].

The 3rd base coach was enthusiastically waving his right arm from the moment Jin-hyung was about to step on 3rd base.

Around the time Jin-hyung stepped on 3rd base, the throw had just started relaying from the outfield to the infield.

After Jin-hyung stepped on 3rd base, everyone’s eyes were focused on home plate.

Sung-hoon *hyung*, whose at-bat was reserved after Seung-joo, watched the direction of the throw and waved both hands from the upper right to the lower left.

Jin-hyung, who was running while looking at Sung-hoon *hyung* instead of the catcher, approached home plate,

*Swoosh―*

And thrust his right foot towards home plate. Also, immediately after that, the catcher who received the throw quickly turned and tagged Jin-hyung.

“Out!”

Huh?

I stopped my practice pitches and watched the situation on the ground, feeling out of place with the call.

Seriously, why is that umpire acting like that since earlier?

Even as the dugout and the Wonha Challengers cheering squad were buzzing, Jin-hyung and Sung-hoon *hyung* calmly drew a large square with both hands [requesting a video review].

Judging from their expressions, it was an expression that they didn’t feel it was worth dealing with, that they didn’t feel it was worth arguing with.

The head coach, who had temporarily taken over the position of interim manager due to the manager’s seat being vacant, also nodded and left the dugout.

Video review is in progress at the request of the Wonha Challengers side.

The heated atmosphere subsided for a moment, and solemn music flowed through the stadium…….

“Safe-.”

…It wasn’t even long before the ruling was quickly overturned.

“Yeeeeeeah!!”

“Seung-joo, niceee!!”

“Wow, Jin-hyung’s sliding is good too!”

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Jin-hyung, who had raised one scoring stat with a great slide, returned to the dugout and started high-fiving all the team members.

I hoped that we could take advantage of this momentum and score at least one more point,

“Strike, out!”

The inning ended as Sung-hoon *hyung* watched a fastball that was so full on the inside that it seemed to overflow.

Ah, of course, that’s sarcasm.

“Han-wool, let’s go out.”

“Yes!”

But it’s okay.

We scored a whopping three points. It became a picture of reversing one point with those three points [taking the lead by two].

One point?

It’s tight, but,

“Hoo….”

It’s okay. I can definitely stop them.

*Ding-!*

[Ticklishly]

– Get through 1 inning without allowing any runs without recording any strikeouts. (0/1)

– Reward – Changeup +2

Without even needing strikeouts.