The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 165

Immaculate Inning (3)

I have a good feeling about this.

It’s like a problem I could never solve suddenly has an answer after waking up from a nap.

This wasn’t the first time I’d experienced this. It happened quite often after I ruined my shoulder in high school and switched to being a hitter. Back then, my hitting skills grew rapidly, like weeds after rain.

That was the secret to how a high school pitcher with a ruined shoulder transitioned to a hitter and got drafted in the upper rounds of the pros within a year.

In simple terms, overwhelming genius.

And now, on the mound, I was once again certain.

I’m a genius as a pitcher, too.

Confidence swelled from the depths of my lungs.

I held the baseball that had gone around the infield, passing through Noh Hyung-wook, Kang Ra-on, Jung Ji-woon, and Lee Gyu-man. The strong trust in Lee Gyu-man’s eyes as he looked at me made the mere 145-gram baseball feel heavy.

I put that weight into the throw.

-Whoosh!!!

“Strike!!!”

A fastball at 160.9 km/h, a little high.

The batter’s bat swung through the air.

He didn’t look as flustered as Lee Gyu-man had, but his expression wasn’t good. He probably thought he had timed it well in the on-deck circle, but it probably didn’t feel that way in the batter’s box.

In reality, it’s not enough to just time a ball that fast. When you think about the mechanics of a batter hitting a ball, the difference between the ball reaching the mitt in 0.4 seconds versus 0.35 seconds after leaving the pitcher’s hand is huge.

From recognizing the ball to judging it, deciding to swing, and then actually swinging.

The physical act of swinging only takes an average of 0.15 seconds. The rest of the process is all brainpower. So, whether you give that process 0.25 seconds or 0.2 seconds is a massive difference. It’s enough for a batter who hits around .250 to swing and miss at a high ball like that.

And here’s one more thing.

A fast curve with a shallow break.

-Clack!!!

Ah, the speed was good, but the break was too weak.

But it’s okay. No, it’s even better.

The ball went foul.

0-2 count.

I reminded the batter of another option.

Instead of blindly swinging based on timing, he had to recognize that if a breaking ball came after expecting a fastball, he had to adjust his swing accordingly.

And that was enough.

-Whoosh!!

“Strike!! Out!!”

The slight hesitation caused by the awareness that I had a breaking ball made his bat timing completely late.

161.8 km/h.

It was a three-pitch strikeout.

[Goodness. Choi Soo-won. Three consecutive three-pitch strikeouts!! Choi Soo-won perfectly shuts down the Dolphins in the bottom of the 2nd with nine pitches.]

[Choi Soo-won is showing us another Immaculate Inning here. As far as I know, that’s a record that hasn’t been achieved even ten times in the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization].]

[Ah, so a three-pitch strikeout for three consecutive batters is called an Immaculate Inning?]

[Yes, roughly translated, it means a flawless inning. It’s a rare record that has only been achieved by 96 people in Major League history, which has a long history of baseball, and it doesn’t even happen once a year. It’s the same in the KBO, so in the 45-year history, it shouldn’t be even ten times… Ah, I found the data here. Only eight people have done it so far. It’s a great record that has only happened nine times. Among active players… Ah, Kwak Jae-young of the Marines achieved it 7 years ago in his 28th season.]

[Ah, I remember. Kwak Jae-young was a great player in his prime.]

The tickling sensation was becoming clearer. I wanted to throw the ball more quickly. If this were MLB [Major League Baseball], the form I’m throwing in now would be accurately recorded, so it would be easier to reproduce, but it’s difficult here. Above all, this game isn’t at our home stadium, but at an away stadium, so it’s even more so.

-Clack!!!

Ah…

Lee Jung-hoon, who’s on first base, grins.

I wanted to throw the ball more quickly, but I should have just kept doing what I was doing. What wind blew in that made me get hit so cleanly…

It didn’t end there.

Kang Ra-on followed with another hit.

Lee Jung-hoon passed second base and went to third.

Kang Ra-on also easily reached first base. Well, I knew it was going to come back to my at-bat, but what’s with these guys? The Marines were normal in the 2nd inning, but now they’re Earth 616 [a reference to the main Marvel Comics universe] in the 3rd.

The empty second base was an eyesore.

This is obviously a walk. Who in the world would try to compete against a hitter with a .2000 OPS [On-Base Plus Slugging, a baseball statistic] here?

-Thwack!!

“Strike!!!”

Oh? Could there be such an idiot?

A moment of doubt,

But I shook my head. Of course not. That last ball was a bit outside, but the umpire called it a strike. Wait, now that I think about it, I got a similar call earlier. The umpire is just being generous today.

If the situation were different, I might have been more aggressive with my hitting. But we were already ahead by two points.

I watched the ball a little more.

Ball. And another ball.

Ji Dae-yeol, the Dolphins’ starting pitcher, took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was definitely getting warmer as we passed mid-May.

1-2 count.

Ji Dae-yeol’s ball came flying in.

An ambiguous course, similar to the first pitch. No, it came in a little deeper. Just barely.

-Clack!!

It was slightly off the sweet spot. Around the edge of the zone I had set.

Leg kick without breaking my balance.

As I move my lower body forward from the launch position, I keep my upper body tied back as if pulling it back slightly.

And then I release the power that was tied up in an instant. Through that, a slight advance and intense rotation occur simultaneously. A violent shift of the center of gravity, as if the back foot is lifted high.

But my head doesn’t shake, and I don’t release the strength in the hand holding the bat until the last moment.

This is not the most perfect form of my prime that I have created over nearly 20 years, but the most beautiful batting form I used until just before that.

But regardless of that, it was an intense swing that seemed like it would split the ball.

The ball stretched out.

Kang Il-jin of the Dolphins ran too.

He was fast. But that was only within the bounds of common sense. Since his defensive position was already pulled back, the timing of reaching the fence was similar to Lee Joo-hyuk’s. But my hit was faster than Baek Kang-ho’s, and his jump wasn’t as beautiful as Lee Joo-hyuk’s.

Someone in the second row of the outfield caught my home run ball.

It was my fourteenth home run of the season.

5:0.

There were still 0 outs in the top of the 3rd.

***

Noh Hyung-wook removed the bat ring from his bat.

There are many stories about bat rings, but even if it is scientifically proven that they are not very helpful, Noh Hyung-wook will never not wear a bat ring in the on-deck circle. What is important to Noh Hyung-wook is not scientific principles, but what he believes in.

“I’ll be back.”

“……”

Lee Gyu-man, who entered the on-deck circle after Noh Hyung-wook, nodded.

People forget the past too quickly.

But he remembered clearly how great that hitter was, who was about to retire. How much of a demon he was who thoroughly destroyed the team he supported.

When Noh Hyung-wook was still a baseball boy, Lee Gyu-man, who was twenty-two years old, was the destroyer of the league. Yes, maybe it felt similar to Choi Soo-won now. Of course, Choi Soo-won is a little more, no, much more handsome and sleek, but anyway, that’s it.

Noh Hyung-wook is a man who doesn’t change easily.

That’s why, even now, when everyone doesn’t believe in Lee Gyu-man’s revival, he alone believes that form is temporary, but class is permanent.

-Clack!!!

A hitter passing through the middle of his prime cleanly hit the ball.

Choi Soo-won lightly hits the ball over the fence, so the league’s home run park factor is affected, but the KBO is clearly a pitcher-friendly league.

That means it’s not easy to get the ball over the fence.

The well-hit ball fell right in front of the left fielder. A hit that was a little disappointing to go to second base. Noh Hyung-wook’s feet stopped at first base.

No outs, runner on 1st.

Lee Gyu-man came to bat.

Some people said this.

Lee Gyu-man should have retired three years ago. That doesn’t mean they are anti-Lee Gyu-man. In a sense, they were people who loved KBO legend Lee Gyu-man more than anyone else.

Lee Gyu-man’s career is also in its 23rd year this year.

At one time, his career ratio stats, which exceeded .300/.400/.500, have now fallen to .300/.300/.500. There’s even talk that if the current trend continues, it might end at .200/.300/.500.

In fact, Lee Gyu-man himself knows it well.

How could he not know?

But even so, he couldn’t give up.

He embraced almost all the glory that a player could enjoy.

Almost all of the KBO’s hitter records were his. Of course, some people belittled it as the result of Lee Gyu-man staying in Korea without going abroad and accumulating stats, but that was not true. Lee Gyu-man in his prime was clearly a great hitter that no one in the KBO could match in terms of ratio stats.

But even so, he thought he was a hitter who didn’t know true glory.

What is the purpose of baseball?

A good game? Great record? Great performance?

No, no.

All those things are just secondary things you get on the way to your goal.

The only goal at the end of every reason why a baseball player hits, runs, and throws on the ground is ‘victory’.

And the end of that victory and victory.

The greatest glory in baseball is not the MVP trophy given out saying, ‘You were the best player this year,’ but the championship trophy that only the winning team can lift until the end, and the championship ring that only those who lifted that trophy can wear.

23 years as a pro.

The greatest hitter in KBO history who has never won a championship.

Lee Gyu-man led his heavy body to the plate.

He adjusted his diet, exercised more, cut off contact with trivial things around him to the point of being selfish, and managed his condition.

Has his batting form changed from his prime?

Has his swing speed slowed down?

No.

Lee Gyu-man is just old.

It now takes him 0.195 seconds to recognize an incoming ball that used to be 0.03 seconds faster than average at 0.145 seconds.

Yes, it’s only 0.03 seconds.

But that 0.03 second difference is as far apart as the time it takes for a 150 km/h ball and a 160 km/h ball to leave the pitcher’s hand and pass through the strike zone.

-Whoosh!!!!

That’s how Lee Gyu-man’s bat failed to live up to Noh Hyung-wook’s expectations.

***

5:0.

Standing on the mound with strong scoring support… Wait, wait a minute, I have 2 runs and 3 RBIs [Runs Batted In], so is this the right expression for scoring support? No. If it was before, I would have had to hit five home runs to score 5 points, but 5 points with 1 walk and 1 home run is honestly scoring support. That’s right.

Anyway, let’s just go with that.

Anyway, I stood on the mound with the strong support of 5 points.

But I liked hitting a home run, but I feel like that ambiguous feeling has faded a bit. I wish I could have kept throwing fastballs.

-Thwack!!!

I threw five practice balls during the changeover timing, but it’s still a bit ambiguous.

The Dolphins’ seventh batter came to the plate.

There was a time when the Dolphins’ lower batting order was considered better than the Marines’ upper batting order, so the Dolphins’ batting lineup had something special in the KBO.

But now I am a perfect pitcher who has not allowed a single hit against the Dolphins’ upper batting order.

-Ptooey

Anyway, that’s it.

In that sense, I didn’t bother to try hard against the lower batting order.

I lightly and effortlessly threw a fastball to the outside low course.

-Thwack!!!

“Strike!!!!!!”

[Uh……]

[Wow, this isn’t even surprising anymore. 162.7km/h. Choi Soo-won threw a 101-mile ball again.]

[No, it’s not like he’s screaming and throwing the ball lightly. But the ball is hitting 162. He’s a monster himself.]

[Ah, but Choi Soo-won doesn’t seem to like something? He’s shaking his head.]

[Well. Maybe he was going to throw 163 now, but he didn’t like it because it was 162?]