The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 149

149. Are the Marines Really a Strong Team? (2)

“This feels like the yips, doesn’t it?”

“Huh? The chicken feet [a baseball term for a hitch in a player’s throwing motion]? But doesn’t that cause problems with throws? Jin-woong can’t even catch the ball right now.”

“No, the yips don’t always just affect throwing. It’s just that it often happens that way. Sometimes it affects hitting, and sometimes it affects catching, like now.”

“Sigh… So, it’s probably because Su-won hit him in a bad spot with the ball, right?”

“Well, probably.”

-Thwack!!!

Choi Jin-woong caught Diltz’s ball without any trouble.

The oldest pitcher, Kwak Jae-young, watched this and muttered with a face still full of worry.

“It doesn’t seem to be about the speed difference…”

Kwak Jae-young was the first to throw to Choi Jin-woong, who had missed my pitches twice. And Choi Jin-woong caught Kwak Jae-young’s pitches too easily.

Of course, there was nearly a 25 km/h difference in average speed between me and Kwak Jae-young, so Diltz immediately stepped up to have Choi Jin-woong try to catch his pitches as well.

“Good!!”

Diltz gave a thumbs up after testing all his pitches. For Han Gyo-cheol, who wasn’t completely satisfied with Diltz in both offense and defense, and for Jjo-yu, who wasn’t satisfied with him in offense, Choi Jin-woong’s return would be a welcome event. From the start, Diltz’s splitter wasn’t his main pitch, and the change wasn’t that significant, so his weak blocking wasn’t a big deal.

“Su-won, can you throw to me one more time? I think I was just nervous because it had been so long since I caught such a fast ball.”

“Yes.”

Still, seeing him like this, it doesn’t seem like the worst-case scenario I was worried about.

Honestly, if it went that far, I’d feel too bad, even if I didn’t hit him directly and it was just a foul ball that hit him in a bad spot.

-Thwack

Twice.

Choi Jin-woong failed to catch my ball again.

It’s definitely not the full-blown yips…

“Okay, let’s stop here for today. Jin-woong, follow me for a bit. Su-won, do your cool-down exercises.”

“Yes.”

Even if the yips start with a psychological issue, the mechanism that follows isn’t just psychological. There are real, physical difficulties in the movement of the muscles themselves.

But from what I see, Choi Jin-woong doesn’t seem to have difficulty with the act of catching the ball itself, but rather a trauma-like reaction to the situation of me throwing the ball with a batter present.

So, well, it doesn’t seem like the full-blown yips, and it seems like he could improve with continuous psychological treatment and so on, but… I wonder if there’s really a need for that.

After all, a catcher can’t play all 144 games in a year, and the team seems to be a bit more proactive in developing the next catcher, so it would be solved by simply assigning Jjo-yu as my exclusive catcher. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be here in the Marines forever.

More than anything, the gap between a catcher who can block and one who can’t is much bigger than I thought, so I feel more comfortable with Jjo-yu when I’m pitching. Choi Jin-woong might be a bit better at hitting, but from my perspective, it’s really minimal. After all, I’m the one who has to hit home runs to score points…

I was showering when Diltz came in a beat later than me and slowly approached me.

He was huge.

Ah, I’m talking about his body, of course. It was definitely a body that made it understandable how he could fling people around like that during the bench-clearing brawl. I need to bulk up more quickly, but it’s not easy to build muscle while balancing pitching and hitting.

If it were about 10 years from now, there would be a lot of related data and active research, so there would be a lot of references, but right now, the available data is too limited.

“Su-won, it’s not your fault, so don’t be too gloomy. You didn’t even hit him directly; it was just a foul tip.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. That’s what I’m going to tell you tomorrow.”

“This is pressure to score some points, right?”

“Not pressure, but encouragement. After two consecutive losses, it’s the ace’s duty to break the streak. I can take care of the scoring, but scoring isn’t something I can do at will.”

“Looking at those arms, it seems like you’d be good at swinging the bat yourself?”

“Haha, maybe. Seeing some of the hitters swinging their bats these days, I really feel like doing it myself.”

***

There are a few teams in the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization] that can be called a ‘dynasty.’

Well, as always, it’s not easy for people’s opinions to align. But there are exactly two. There are teams that everyone can’t deny built a dynasty.

The Gwangju Hawks, who had the most powerful players in KBO history in the 80s.

And the Daegu Griffins, who achieved the absurd record of four consecutive integrated championships in the 2010s.

Among them, the Daegu Griffins’ heyday ended in 2015 with a truly absurd scandal. Considering that they had achieved five consecutive pennant race victories at the time, the fact that they finished 9th in the regular season immediately afterward and only advanced to the post-season twice in 11 years shows how thoroughly the Griffins’ dynasty collapsed.

And here were two men dreaming of the Daegu Griffins’ revival.

Kang Ji-woo and Charlie Kim, who graduated from prestigious American universities across the water and worked for 13 years under the advanced MLB [Major League Baseball] system before being scouted by the Griffins in Korea, were the main characters.

“How is it? Did anything come up?”

“Well… the more I look at it, the more I don’t see an answer. I’d rather have Lee Gyu-man in his prime.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yeah. At least Lee Gyu-man had problems with his base running. This guy doesn’t even have that. The difference is that Lee Gyu-man was a contact hitter with too much power, so he hit it over the fence, but this guy is a home run hitter who’s also too good at making contact and is fast.”

“That sounds like you’re saying he’s perfect in a roundabout way?”

“Who’s being roundabout? I’m just saying he’s absurd. I think he’s just at his peak condition right now, and there’s no answer but to avoid him for the time being. The only weakness is that he seems to be physically tired around the 6th or 7th inning on days when he’s pitching and hitting?”

“Oh… so that means there’s no problem if he stops pitching from the 6th inning and just hits?”

“You understand well.”

The introduction of TrackMan to professional baseball is already a long time ago. In fact, most teams are now introducing the next stage, Hawk-Eye. It’s truly an era where even the slightest habits of players can be perfectly analyzed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that all players are analyzed in such detail. The data that forms the basis of the analysis is accumulated, but the analysis based on that is ultimately done by people. Moreover, the more places that utilize such data, the more the value of the people who analyze that data will skyrocket.

“Sigh… When do we have a game at our stadium with him? There seems to be a limit to this kind of data.”

“According to the schedule, it’s the third week of next month.”

“That’s too bad. Too bad. If this game was at our home stadium, we could have analyzed it in more detail and applied it from the next away series.”

“So, the conclusion right now is that there’s no answer. Is that it?”

“Yeah. Just tell them to give him a walk whenever possible.”

“Even with the bases loaded?”

“Statistically, I recommend doing that.”

Griffin’s general manager Kang Ji-woo sighed at the assertion of Charlie Kim, the highest-paid data analyst in Korea.

“Sigh… This is driving me crazy. I thought the system was barely starting to take hold. What kind of analysis is this…”

“What do you mean, ‘this kind of analysis’? Hey, is that something you should say to me, who’s rotting away here for a pittance? I came here because you begged me to help.”

“Hey, honestly, it’s not a pittance. You have the same salary as the general manager.”

“Well, I think I would have had an easier job and made more money if I had stayed in Houston…”

“Hey, but the cost of living is different. Besides, what? Let’s build a system together rather than working as a component in an already completed system. Don’t you remember?”

“Sigh, you’re always good with words. Okay, okay. Just find some more proper data. Not just TrackMan, but Hawk-Eye. You know. TrackMan is okay for pitcher data, but Hawk-Eye is needed for hitting data.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll try my best.”

***

Tuesday, when baseball starts.

Today’s Griffin’s starter is Jeff Cailon. A 28-year-old pitcher who recorded a 6.11 ERA [Earned Run Average] in 23.1 innings with Houston last year.

Originally, he could have tried to challenge the big leagues a little more, but Griffin’s general manager Kang Ji-woo persuaded him. If he was going to hone his skills in the minor leagues anyway, it would be more beneficial to play in Korea with perfect support and a lot of money.

He has appeared in 3 games so far, pitching 21 innings and allowing 3 runs.

An ERA of 1.29.

It was a performance worthy of being called a special-class player.

“Hmm… this uniform design is too tacky.”

“Bear with it. At least our away uniform is better than their uniform.”

“This is better? That’s hard to believe.”

Daegu Griffins and Busan Marines were the only two teams that had not changed their location, team name, or parent group since the KBO was founded in 1982.

Of course, there was a huge difference between the two teams.

One team had won the second-most championships in KBO history and even built a veritable dynasty, while the other team had not won a championship for the longest period in the KBO and boasted an overwhelming 11 last-place finishes, tied with Phoenix.

But nevertheless, for various reasons, this series between the two teams was held a little specially, and they often played the game wearing old uniforms under the name of the Classic Series.

And thanks to that, the Marines were making very happy screams today.

“Are there any old uniforms left in stock?”

“No, all stores are sold out.”

In fact, many fans had already purchased uniforms marked with Choi Su-won’s name.

So far, Choi Su-won had been the number one in uniform sales for all teams.

But even the fans who had already purchased Choi Su-won’s uniform, no, precisely because they had already purchased Choi Su-won’s uniform, they couldn’t help but be excited about Choi Su-won’s no-hit, no-run game.

So they opened their wallets wide with great pleasure.

And the result was the sell-out of old uniforms.

Not only the Smurf uniform, which was the Marines’ only championship uniform, but also the old-fashioned home uniforms were completely sold out. There was a really long line in front of the machine that marked the players’ names, long enough to make you wonder when it would end.

The game started amidst explosive interest and popularity.

***

Top of the 1st inning.

Diltz got hit.

Ah, of course, I don’t mean he got physically hit. When I looked at it, there were really only a few people in Korea who could do that. No, maybe there weren’t any.

Anyway, he seemed to be in good condition just yesterday, but maybe he slept wrong, because he gave up a walk and got hit with three hits, allowing a whopping three runs in the first inning alone.

“Shit!!!!”

-Bang!!!

He threw a box of snacks as he returned to the dugout. It was clearly a small paper box, but the sound was almost like a balloon bursting, which made it possible to guess how angry he was.

Well, since the target of his anger was himself, it was better to just leave him alone than to try to stop him. It was a bit dangerous to rashly try to stop him.

Kang Ra-on went to bat.

And he leaned against the dugout fence and looked at the opposing pitcher.

His pitches were definitely good.

But at best, about Jo Chang-hyuk’s level?

I thought that there would be no great difficulty in repaying Diltz, who had played a very big role for me during the last bench-clearing brawl, with baseball.

[Ah… the Griffins’ dugout. They’re choosing to intentionally walk him without any hesitation.]

That is, up until the point when they intentionally walked me with runners on first and second with no outs.