The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 207

207. New Record (3)

Im Gwang-hyung didn’t waver.

It was a shocking scene that would normally cause anyone to falter, but he was a man who had already witnessed the wider world extensively.

‘How the hell did he hit that over?’

He had already uttered such words countless times across the Pacific. So, what difference would it make if he saw another one in the KBO [Korean Baseball Organization]? Yes, there are often such monsters in the world. It just happens to be that nineteen-year-old Korean this time.

Im Gwang-hyung simply composed himself and faced the next batter.

-Clang!!

And Noh Hyung-wook was retired with a fly ball to the outfield on the second pitch.

[Im Gwang-hyung calmly gets the next batter, Noh Hyung-wook, out with an outfield fly after the solo home run, making the score 0:1. The game continues with the Phoenix’s attack in the top of the 2nd inning.]

Gwak Jae-young went up to the mound with a determined expression.

He was a man who didn’t have much faith in the Marines’ player development. And that was entirely based on experience.

In fact, player development largely depends on experience. It’s an area of induction, not deduction. In this field, it’s not uncommon to strengthen a specific part only to find that the balance is broken, leading to further failure. And the Marines had quite a lot of experience with such failures.

Even for Gwak Jae-young, his fastball speed, which used to exceed 150 km/h at his peak, had dropped to 140 km/h due to numerous injuries, and he couldn’t deny that a significant portion of those injuries were due to improper training.

However, Gwak Jae-young still fully accepted the training at Sangdong. It wasn’t because he suddenly trusted the Marines’ development system. Of course, he didn’t trust the latest equipment either. There was a lot of fancy equipment, but he didn’t think there would be anyone in the Marines who knew how to handle it properly.

The reason he accepted those training sessions was simply because he was no longer in a position to look to the future.

Thirty-five years old.

With the development of various sports sciences, players’ prime years have been pushed back to the early 30s, and sometimes they even reach career highs in their late 30s, but that wasn’t the case for Gwak Jae-young. His prime was at 27, and he had been steadily declining ever since.

“I’ve compared and analyzed the days when you perform well and the days when you don’t.”

“Do you really need to compare and analyze that to know? On days when my condition is good, my fastball speed is decent and my slider works well, so I perform well, and on days when it’s not, I don’t, so my performance is terrible. Instead of that, please help me equip a new breaking ball. I’m in the mood to learn a knuckleball right now.”

“Okay, well, a knuckleball wouldn’t be bad either. But listen to the end, and if you still think you need a knuckleball, then let’s try it.”

Of course, the persuasion of Bae Gyu-cheol, the Marines’ minor league pitching coach, also played a significant role. He was a coach from overseas known as a weight-gain enthusiast, who replaced Choi Jeong-sik, the original minor league coach who had resigned. Bae Gyu-cheol was a person who had never been called up to the major league during his active career, and he would never have been able to join a professional team as a coach if it hadn’t been for the urgent situation of finding a coach.

“Your shoulder and elbow aren’t in good shape, are they? Ah, sorry. That was too obvious. Anyway, to get to the point, your body axis is slightly misaligned on days when you’re in good condition and days when you’re not. I think it’s because of the pain. The area you had surgery on still hurts, right?”

It was already a known issue.

He had received corrections to his posture on days when he felt good, but there was nothing he could do about the pain that came up every time he threw the ball. It wasn’t difficult to endure the pain and throw, but maintaining an accurate posture in the process was very difficult.

“Can I start practicing the knuckleball?”

“No, no. Listen to the end. I’m not telling you to endure the pain and throw.”

Bae Gyu-cheol continued. It was a truly innovative method.

“Here are good pitching form and bad pitching form. Of course, the goal should be to correct the bad pitching form and create a good pitching form. That’s normal.”

“So, you’re saying we should modify my pitching form based on the pitching form when I’m not in good condition?”

“Yes, you can’t force it. How can you keep enduring the pain and throwing? However, let’s fix the problems that arise from that misalignment. If you look here, the rotation axis of the pitch is misaligned as the pitching form is misaligned, right? The rotation axis of the slider is misaligned, so the movement is also misaligned, and naturally, the location becomes unstable and the control wavers. Because the decisive ball is ruined, the fastball naturally gets hit well.”

It was a different solution from the weight-gain enthusiast Choi Jeong-sik.

Perhaps Choi Jeong-sik would have said to strengthen the muscles in the shoulder and elbow to suppress the pain and develop the ability to maintain the best form. In some ways, that might actually be the right answer. But thirty-five-year-old Gwak Jae-young liked Bae Gyu-sik’s method better. Thirty-five was an age where he knew that he could lose everything if he tried not to give up anything.

-Whoosh!!

“Strike!!”

A 131.2 km/h slider.

The angle of his arm was lowered by about 3 degrees from the form in which he could throw the ball the fastest. Thanks to that, the speed dropped by about 1 km/h, but his shoulder and elbow didn’t hurt. Of course, it was a very easy explanation to say, but it took truly bone-carving effort to engrave this 3-degree lowered form into his body and stabilize the location.

And now the result of that effort.

Gwak Jae-young had shut out the Phoenix’s offense for 3 consecutive innings. Of course, if you ask whether it was purely skill, that wasn’t the case. He had a lot of luck. In the first place, after his shoulder and arm became like this, he wasn’t a pitcher who routinely shut out opponents even on days when he felt good.

6 hits allowed and no runs.

And two strikeouts.

But Gwak Jae-young could slightly raise the corners of his lips with just that.

‘Maybe I can be the winning pitcher today…’

If so, it would be his first starting win in 6 years.

Lee Gyu-man handed him a lukewarm Pocari Sweat [a popular Japanese sports drink] without a word as he returned to the dugout after the inning.

“Thank you, captain.”

They were now a batter with a batting average fluctuating between .230 and .240 and a pitcher whose highest speed in a game was less than 140 km/h, but the two knew each other’s prime years well.

That’s right.

Once upon a time, they were dazzling.

Lee Gyu-man was a batter who gave the belief that he would do something when he stepped into the plate, and Gwak Jae-young was an ace who was trusted to break the team’s losing streak even in situations where the team was on a losing streak.

Yeah.

It’s like Choi Soo-won, who is now entering the plate, divided in half…

‘Ah, is Senior Gyu-man not that good? Still, I think pitcher Choi Soo-won and I were about the same level…’

Choi Soo-won’s second at-bat.

Im Gwang-hyung, a thirty-six-year-old pitcher who played in the same era as Gwak Jae-young, prepared to pitch with the same stoic expression as 10 or 20 years ago. And unlike Lee Gyu-man or Gwak Jae-young, whose glory had already ended, Im Gwang-hyung on the mound still had the brilliance of his youth.

***

Intentional walk?

It was possible. And to be honest, to win the game, it was right to walk him here. There’s no reason to compete with an irregular-class monster when there’s only a 1-point difference right now.

Im Gwang-hyung asked himself whether it was fair to take away the record of the nineteen-year-old young batter who was writing a new record for himself.

The cultures of the KBO and MLB [Major League Baseball] are different, and therefore the unwritten rules are also slightly different. The KBO is a younger league, and it is somewhat permissible to break those unwritten rules in the face of victory.

But even so, Im Gwang-hyung didn’t choose that.

It wasn’t just for that reason.

It’s complex.

Maybe it’s pride or stubbornness.

He considered himself the most powerful pitcher in Korean baseball history. Of course, there may be greater pitchers. Greatness and power are not always directly proportional.

Im Gwang-hyung on the mound prepared the first ball.

Two-seam fastball.

It was the ball that the monster had sent out of the stadium in the previous at-bat.

Tremendous concentration.

It was truly a difference of half a ball.

-Clang!!!

Choi Soo-won’s bat followed.

It was a huge hit.

But this time, it didn’t come inside the foul line. A ball falling on the upper part of the infield stands.

Choi Soo-won briefly stepped away from the plate to adjust his stance.

Then, he stepped into the plate, adjusted his helmet, and tapped his head twice. He paused for a short time, just enough to take a breath, tapped the home plate once with his bat, and then took his stance. It’s Choi Soo-won’s routine for entering the plate.

Still, it’s a relief.

That guy even showed the crazy act of pointing at the electronic display board with his bat during the All-Star Game. At that time, I honestly laughed with the thought that it was the All-Star Game and a performance, but I couldn’t laugh when it actually went over the fence. I could really feel what it meant to say that my hands were shaking.

‘Suddenly, I want to give an intentional walk.’

Outside.

More outside.

So, with the feeling of missing about half a ball more.

-Bang!!

“Strike!!”

But unfortunately, it missed a little more there.

Choi Soo-won’s bat didn’t follow this time.

‘Yeah, even you can’t follow up to here.’

Third.

Slightly inside.

But a ball quite close to the center.

Choi Soo-won’s bat followed.

-Clang!!!

The high-flying ball fell into the infield stands again.

It was a fast slider.

Ball count 1-2.

And he threw two more balls.

Fourth and fifth.

It was a persistent outside two-seam fastball. Soo-won cut one and let one more missing ball pass, making the ball count 2-2.

Im Gwang-hyung briefly took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

The tension that he felt when facing a legendary hitter in the major league strongly pressed his chest.

‘Interesting.’

***

He’s definitely the type of pitcher I hate.

No, he’s the type of pitcher that anyone can’t help but hate.

In fact, pitchers thinking and making ball combinations are often portrayed as very great in baseball cartoons, but in reality, they don’t have that much great meaning.

In the first place, it’s rare for a pitcher to put the ball exactly where he wants it just by thinking so much. Also, if he is a pitcher who puts the ball exactly where he wants it, he often doesn’t need to think that much.

The estimate came out.

Outside low course changeup.

Or inside high course four-seam fastball.

The fact that he persistently showed the outside two-seam fastball is probably aiming for one of the two.

The higher probability is the outside changeup.

‘I should have hit the second slider properly…’

It’s a shame that I missed that ball that came in a bit blandly. Im Gwang-hyung himself knows that, so he’s never throwing a slider since then.

Sixth.

‘Ah…’

It’s a prank from the start.

A subtly fast timing.

It’s a bit much to call it a slide step, but anyway, it felt like his body was moving before his front knee reached its peak. For a normal pitcher, that alone would mess up the pitching balance and make the location a mess, but Im Gwang-hyung is different.

Outside or inside.

The ball came flying.

Outside low course.

As expected, the decisive ball was the changeup that Im Gwang-hyung himself throws the best.

1/2 probability.

No, it was about 4:6 probability, but it was right.

The timing was a bit off, but it was the ball I was aiming for.

-Clang!!!!

If it was an inside high course, it would have been a strikeout or a fly ball out.

But the ball that came in was an outside low course changeup.

The ball stretched out.

It was the second home run of the game.