The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 182

182. Leading (5)

The pressure mounted the moment he allowed a runner on base.

Choi Min-hyuk took a light breath.

Since joining the Braves, the most helpful thing for him wasn’t the advanced system or the rational coaching staff.

It was Jo Chang-hyuk.

The presence of an ace pitcher aiming for the majors was the greatest help to him.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. You think too much useless stuff. You’re pretty good, not as good as me, but still. Just throw it hard, that’s all you gotta do.”

“But you gotta treat the reporters well usually. I, uh? It’s true I hit a junior in high school. It’s true. But honestly, it’s so unfair. Hey, did I only hit him? Everyone was hitting and getting hit back then. I got hit a lot too. And the kid I hit, I met him last winter and I boosted his store’s sales, signed autographs, took pictures, everything, right? But they don’t write articles about that.”

Of course, that gangster-like excuse wasn’t helpful.

However, he realized that such a brazen mentality was really necessary for pitchers like himself.

Fireballer vs. Finesse Pitcher.

Whose heart is stronger?

Many people think that fireballers have guts and finesse pitchers who pitch around the corners don’t.

But the truth is the opposite. If their records are similar, the finesse pitcher who swallows the fear of getting hit and throws slow balls has a much stronger heart. It’s as big as the difference between a soldier fighting with a rifle of fastballs and a soldier holding a cold weapon in front of him.

And Jo Chang-hyuk was a player who threw the best fastballs in the league and had a stronger heart than anyone else.

The controversy over school violence that started from his debut season, and the fact that he couldn’t become a national team player despite his outstanding performance and had to fulfill his military service as a soldier, all of that tempered the human being called Jo Chang-hyuk.

Choi Soo-won going to second base was threatening.

But Choi Min-hyuk simply took a deep breath and didn’t waver.

Second pitch.

Outside fastball.

-Whoosh!!!

“Strike!!!”

The unwavering 156.1km/h fastball barely grazed the zone.

Noh Hyung-wook stepped away from the plate for a moment and frowned.

It was ambiguous.

Was it coming in a little higher, as Lee Gyu-man and Choi Soo-won said? The time it takes for the ball to leave the pitcher’s hand and hit the catcher’s mitt is only 0.35 seconds. It doesn’t make sense to watch the ball until the end and swing in that short amount of time.

Therefore, they predict the end by looking at the starting point and the middle position. It is something that requires experience, and more importantly, innate talent.

Noh Hyung-wook was a talented hitter.

Hitting 30% as a long hitter clearly requires such talent.

He waited for the third pitch.

Center?

Instinctively, the bat moved. But the bat, which had moved about halfway, didn’t move any further.

It’s a slider.

-Whoosh!!

The umpire’s hand didn’t go up. The catcher jumped up from his seat and asked the first base umpire about the check swing, but the result didn’t change.

Ball count 2-1.

In that situation, the fourth pitch.

Set position.

A brief pause. And a quick timing of the cocking.

And Choi Soo-won ran.

It was a timing that no one expected.

In fact, there was even talk that stealing bases in the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization] at this point was a stupid thing to do. Realistically, the marginal line where stealing bases has value is seen as a success rate of 72%.

In other words, a steal with a success rate of less than 72% has no value even if he has stolen over 100 bases. Besides, what about the probability of injury?

In such a situation, even stealing second base was very unexpected, let alone stealing third base.

Above all, second base could be reached with a deep hit anyway. There was no reason to go to third base unnecessarily.

Deep inside course.

-Whoosh!!!

“Strike!!!”

The catcher, who quickly received the ball, threw it towards third base.

An unexpected urgent situation.

The ball floated a little high.

And that was enough.

“Safe!!!”

Choi Soo-won’s foot stepped on third base.

Choi Min-hyuk’s pupils, who had overcome the steal to second base with a big breath, began to shake.

***

[Good heavens!! Choi Soo-won!! Choi Soo-won has stolen from second to third base!!]

[Wow, this player is really determined today, isn’t he? In a 1:1 situation, with no outs and a runner on third base, Choi Soo-won strongly pressures the pitcher with his own two feet.]

[Recently, Choi Soo-won has been getting on base with a lot of walks. But if you add such aggressive baserunning to that, the opposing team will have no choice but to worry a lot.]

I got up from my seat and dusted off my butt.

“Aren’t you working too hard? What if you hurt yourself doing that?”

“It’s an important day. Aren’t we in first place if we win today?”

“What? You’re the type who’s loyal to your job, unlike kids these days?”

“Hey, where does a self-employed person have a job? I’m just working hard on my own business.”

Some guy on third base whose name I don’t even remember came up to me and talked. Certainly, around this time, this was the normal perception of stealing bases. MLB [Major League Baseball] improved the rules by increasing the number of steals by force by improving the rules such as pitch clocks, expanding base sizes, and limiting check balls, but KBO and NPB [Nippon Professional Baseball] were not yet.

Baseball is such an old sport that it has a strong tendency to reject change, but personally, I think it’s a good change. Even if the rules change, that would be a more baseball-like form.

Choi Min-hyuk looked at me once.

He seemed to be dealing with the steal to second base quite confidently, but as expected, two consecutive steals seem to be shaking his mentality a bit. Isn’t this another advantage of stealing bases? Making it impossible for the pitcher to focus only on the plate.

Of course, since he’s already stolen to third base, he doesn’t have to pay any attention to the runner.

But just as the pitcher’s mentality doesn’t recover when the runner is cleared with a home run, just as the pitcher’s mentality is most affected immediately after being hit by a home run, after allowing steals like this in a row, the pitcher’s mind is bound to be complicated.

Basically, people tend to attribute the cause of something wrong to the outside.

Maybe right now, even though Choi Min-hyuk knows it’s not true, he’s feeling a bit resentful towards the catcher for not properly stopping the steal? In fact, if the throw had been a little more accurate just now, there was a possibility that I would have been out.

Noh Hyung-wook waited for the fifth pitch at the plate.

Ball count 2-2.

Choi Min-hyuk’s ball flew.

-Thwack!!!

The high-flying ball stretched out.

But Noh Hyung-wook’s expression, who had actually hit the ball, wasn’t very good.

The angle of the hit was too high.

A brief wait at third base.

The ball that had reached its peak began to descend.

Deep in the outfield.

Center fielder Kang Ho-chang stretched out his arm.

[Center fielder Kang Ho-chang catches the high-flying ball right in front of the warning track.]

[Choi Soo-won on third base comes home comfortably. Sacrifice fly!! In the bottom of the 4th inning, the Marines add 1 point, and the score is now 1:2. The Marines are ahead by another point.]

[The previous two steals eventually lead to points like this. The Marines are very tenacious.]

“I consciously swung high, thinking of hitting a ball that comes in half a ball higher, but it was even higher than that. Almost half a ball?”

“It was that high?”

“It may not always be the case. It’s no outs on third base, so he might have thrown a better ball because he threw it with more force. Anyway, the last ball felt like that.”

Noh Hyung-wook and Lee Gyu-man were already actively exchanging opinions in the waiting batter’s box.

Honestly, considering only the performance that Lee Gyu-man has shown so far, Noh Hyung-wook’s attitude was a bit excessive. Compared to his age, he was certainly excellent, but well… Rather, Kang Ra-on or Lee Jung-hoon are much better hitters right now.

“Good job. Let’s try a little harder. If we win today, I’ll treat you to a really good lamb skewers for dinner.”

“Senior, Soo-won is pitching tomorrow…”

“Ah, that’s right. I was so happy that it was the first time in a long time that I regained first place that I couldn’t think. Then I’ll treat you separately tomorrow, Soo-won. Let’s try a little harder today and tomorrow.”

Lee Gyu-man picked up his bat and walked to the plate.

“Now you have to tell the other players too, right?”

“No, after Gyu-man’s at-bat. It might just be my delusion. And it’s better for Gyu-man to say that than for me to say it anyway.”

A hitter who had passed his prime and was about to retire stood at the plate.

And a fastball exceeding 155 km/h was too harsh for such a hitter.

-Thwack!!!

First pitch hit.

Lee Gyu-man ran with all his might, not at a very fast speed.

But it was meaningless. There was no such thing as an infield hit in his dictionary, so every hit that did not escape the shortstop’s glove was enough to get Lee Gyu-man out in any situation.

The game continued.

***

“So, the ball is coming in a little high. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, it seems a bit erratic. I think it’s about half to half a ball higher.”

Lee Jung-hoon nodded at Lee Gyu-man’s words.

Choi Soo-won is such an overwhelming hitter right now that it feels like it’s being buried a lot, but Lee Gyu-man was a hitter who had built up tremendous records that could be counted on one hand throughout KBO history. Especially if you limit it to the plate, the force of his prime is hard for any KBO hitter to follow. And that tremendous record gives credibility to his story.

“I understand. I’ll try to aim for it. Besides, he’s starting to run out of steam.”

After the 5th inning, at the beginning of the 6th inning.

Choi Min-hyuk perfectly blocked the Marines’ lower batting order. In the case of Jjo Yu, it seemed that the story of swinging half to half a ball higher was so poisonous that he showed a terrible performance.

Once again, that guy’s software is too bad compared to his hardware.

And Diego Rodriguez gave up one more point.

It was a disappointing run, but it was more appropriate to praise the Braves’ tenaciousness than Diego Rodriguez’s problem. What should I say? There was a strong determination that they couldn’t show the Marines’ first place in 15 years against them?

2:2

In the numbers that were quite tense from the perspective of watching the game and from the perspective of the players playing the game, the bottom of the 6th inning began.

[Well, bottom of the 6th inning. The Marines are attacking again. The score is 2:2. The batting order starts with number 1, Lee Jung-hoon.]

[Lee Jung-hoon, who recorded one foul fly and one double play in the previous at-bat. I wonder what he will show in this at-bat. Choi Min-hyuk on the mound, preparing for the first pitch.]

First pitch fastball.

-Thwack!!!

The hit went out of the foul line.

He stepped away from the plate for a moment and smiled slightly.

‘It really comes in high.’

Was it because I was conscious of swinging the bat in a slightly higher course?

The timing was a bit off.

But this is right. That guy, the ball comes in a little higher than what you can see. This must be a case where vertical tailing is strongly applied with something like the number of revolutions.

And if you’ve figured it out, it’s time to attack.

Second pitch.

Lee Jung-hoon swung the bat hard.

-Thwack!!!

[Ah, a high-flying ball. It doesn’t leave the infield.]

[Pitcher Choi Min-hyuk handles the hit directly and gets one out. Number 2 hitter Kang Ra-on comes to the plate.]

Of course, if you can attack it right away just because you figured it out, how could that be baseball?

Lee Jung-hoon scratched his cheek and stepped back.

“Ra-on, Gyu-man was right. It comes in a little high.”

“Yes.”