The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 60

60. Frustrated? (2)

There was a lot of internal debate within the Marlins when they drafted Baek Ha-min. The biggest issue was his small size: 179cm and 77kg. Of course, that was quite tall by general standards. However, the average height of KBO [Korean Baseball Organization] starting pitchers is 185cm.

“With that physique, 153km/h? He’ll never last long.”

There were already many precedents.

Velocity isn’t everything. There were many pitchers who squeezed every ounce of power from their small frames to throw 100 mph. But size is almost an absolute requirement for durability.

But even so, Baek Ha-min had something sparkling about him.

The windup.

A wild, coiling motion that seemed to extract the limit from his relatively small frame, and a stride that dragged out half a step further. A coiling motion that whipped like lightning.

And then, a BANG at the release!

Mark Miller, standing at the plate, swung his bat.

-Clang!!

27th overall pick in this draft.

He signed for $2.67 million, far short of the $2.9 million slot money for the 27th pick in the first round this year. But even so, a first-rounder is a first-rounder. Mark Miller was definitely one of the most promising prospects in the entire United States.

But it wasn’t enough.

Slightly mistimed. The batted ball didn’t make it past the infield.

-Thwack!!

Force out at first base.

The United States, the land of capitalism.

Until now, all U-18 games had been broadcast via YouTube. But today’s game between the United States and Korea was different. ESPN, no less. Of course, it was ESPN-U, not the main broadcast, but one of the nationally broadcast channels took on the special coverage of this game.

The commentator was former major leaguer Manny Smith.

He didn’t have a Hall of Fame-worthy career, but he was a decent hitter who recorded 2,000 hits and 250 home runs in his 17 years in the majors.

[Wow, Baek, was it? The pitcher from the Korean team today. Very dynamic. Despite his small frame, his pitches are quite powerful.]

[Personally, I think he feels a bit like Tim Lincecum, who I watched when I was younger.]

[Ah, now that you mention it, there is a bit of that. He doesn’t have long hair, but his physique is similar, and his form feels a bit similar.]

[If this keeps up, I’m quite looking forward to his next at-bat.]

Second at-bat.

Alexander McDowell, the baseball prodigy watched by the entire nation, stepped up to the plate.

The youngest-ever winner of the Golden Spikes Award.

The first overall pick in the draft.

The protagonist of a $12.1 million contract, far exceeding the $9.8 million slot money originally allocated to the first overall pick. Thanks to that, the Kansas City Royals had to pull their bonus pool to the maximum, picking Ian Lewis, who was predicted to be drafted in the 3rd round, with the 1st pick in the 2nd round.

Baek Ha-min on the mound looked at Alexander McDowell.

He had already faced Choi Soo-won, an extraordinary talent, more than enough times in Korea. So, how good would the best talent in the United States be? Baek Ha-min’s eyes sparkled in front of his most formidable opponent.

Manager Kwon Gyu-jong nodded.

Jo Gyu-chan and Baek Ha-min.

The two players were talents that were hard to rank. But the reason he chose Baek Ha-min as the starting pitcher in today’s game was precisely because of that aspect. Manager Kwon Gyu-jong thought of himself as a romantic who didn’t fit in the professional world. Of course, some people criticized him as an outdated person who believed in the outdated spirit of perseverance rather than the scientific methods of modern baseball, but even so, he believed that such aspects were as important as current skills in the world of these young teenagers who still had a long way to grow.

Of course, the fact that five of the American team’s starting hitters were left-handed and four were right-handed also influenced his decision a bit.

Baek Ha-min wound up greatly.

Alexander McDowell watched him.

First pitch.

High inside course.

-Thwack!!!

“Strike!!!”

A clean pitch.

Baek Ha-min smiled. The result was good, but the process was even better. The ball landed exactly where he wanted it.

And the second.

A sharp, sweeping high-speed slider.

-Clang!!

Alexander McDowell’s bat came out. But the weakly hit ball went over the foul line.

[Ha-min Baek!! The Korean pitcher who resembles Tim Lincecum is cornering Alexander McDowell. The count is 0-2. Now it’s a very unfavorable count for the batter.]

[A 92-mile fastball followed by an 86-mile slider? The course was also very good.]

Alexander McDowell tilted his head once, requested a brief timeout, and stepped out of the batter’s box. He re-tightened his gloves, returned to the plate, and adjusted his helmet. Then, he looked at Baek Ha-min on the mound.

He could feel an indescribable aura from the pitcher on the mound.

Alexander McDowell smiled at that sharp aura. It was always a welcome thing for that fiery heart to be directed entirely at him. He liked Korea much more than he had thought. To think they had hidden not only Choi Soo-won but also a pitcher like this.

A dynamic stance.

The pitcher on the mound blazed like a flame.

Ball count 0-2.

A ball that falls out? [A breaking ball that appears to be a strike but curves out of the strike zone at the last moment.]

No, no.

A precarious course on the outside. A place where it wouldn’t matter if the strike call wasn’t given, but deep down, there was a desire for a three-pitch strikeout.

His senses analyzed Baek Ha-min.

Overwhelming dynamic visual acuity, and the coordination to process that information and move according to the processed information. Even the batting form that best suited his physique, perfected through long training.

Alexander McDowell moved.

Like lightning.

-Clang!!!

The farthest point of the sweet spot. [The optimal point on the bat to make contact with the ball.]

The armpit opened slightly, but he didn’t stop putting power into it until the last moment, much faster than the 92.8 mph speed it was flying at. Thus, the ball bounced off at a speed comparable to 100 mph.

A low launch angle.

Second baseman Park Jin-kyung dove, but it was no use. The lightning-fast batted ball broke through the infield.

“Tch······.”

The time it took for Alexander McDowell to reach first base was about 3.76 seconds.

Very fast, but the speed of the batted ball was no less fast. There was no time to go to second base.

A disappointing single.

He thought he had perfectly inputted the trajectory of the ball, but the end of the ball was more bland than he thought. Compared to the aura he showed on the mound, his stuff wasn’t very good.

Three and a half steps, and a little more than that.

Baek Ha-min frowned.

-Thwack!!!

A quick pickoff throw, but it was useless.

Alexander McDowell dusted off the dirt on his chest.

Again, three and a half steps, and a little more than that.

Next up, the 3rd batter.

Set position.

Baek Ha-min throws the ball…

Alexander McDowell ran.

Perfect timing. Baek Ha-min’s balance was slightly disturbed.

The batter at the plate swung his bat greatly.

-Whoosh!!!

There are no left-handed catchers. There are several reasons, but one of them is that there are more right-handed hitters than left-handed hitters. When throwing the ball to stop a stolen base, it is more convenient to not have a batter in the batter’s box.

But now the batter in the batter’s box was a left-handed hitter.

Jung Byung-cheol threw the ball with his unique knee shot. [A throwing motion where the catcher releases the ball from a low position near their knee.]

-Thwack!!!

A narrow difference.

Second baseman stretched out his arms.

“Safe!!”

One out, runner on second.

The game continued.

Strikeout.

And a timely hit.

Bottom of the 1st inning.

Korea eventually allowed the United States to tie the score.

***

4th inning.

Already on the mound for the American team, instead of Zack Johnson, was a guy named Juan Martinez.

Zack Johnson, who came out as the starter, had his mentality shaken in the 3rd inning after getting hit with an extra-base hit by me, and then got hit with a timely hit by Jung Byung-cheol and was taken off the mound.

Juan Martinez.

Just by the name, he sounds like a guy from South America, but he was a third-generation immigrant, born in the United States. He was the 34th overall pick in this draft as a sandwich pick [A draft pick awarded between the first and second rounds to teams that lost free agents], wasn’t he? Anyway, although his pick was lower than Zack Johnson’s, his pitching was much better today, maybe because he was in good condition.

Average of 97 to 98 mph.

Our hitters couldn’t even touch it and were swinging their bats wildly. Well, after yesterday’s exciting performance against China, I had a bad feeling since they didn’t correct their batting forms after the game.

Even major league hitters hate going to the home run derby because their batting forms get messed up, so it would be too much to expect high school students who swung their bats so wildly against low-level Chinese pitchers to maintain their original forms.

Maybe the manager and coaches were also considering extra batting practice.

But in a situation where the kids, who had only experienced about five games in two weeks at most in the weekend league or the King of Kings tournament, had to play nine games in a little over ten days, forcing them to do extra batting practice would be more harmful than good.

Over there in the corner of the dugout, Baek Ha-min was wiping away the dripping sweat with a towel and changing his undershirt. For an athlete, his face was very pale, and his body, which hadn’t been exposed to the sun, was so white that the expression “pale” was fitting.

People originally need to get a little tan for their muscles to look good. It’s not for nothing that bodybuilders paint their bodies black with tan before competitions.

Was that why? He really looked weak. If Gyu-hyuk were here, he would have immediately rushed over and urged him to lift weights. With that kind of talent, I felt like I knew why he only had that kind of career in my life before I regressed.

It wasn’t an accurate memory. It was just a story I heard from Jo Yu, who had a few drinks at Jjoo-yoo’s gopchang restaurant [A Korean restaurant specializing in grilled small intestines].

So, his elbow burst in his third year, he rehabbed for a year and came back, and his shoulder burst in six months? And after another year and a half of rehab, he had a side injury. By that time, his velocity was in the early 140s, and he barely managed to pitch as a reliever before retiring a year earlier than Jo Yu.

Baek Ha-min, who had changed his clothes and put on a pitching jacket, came over to me instead of going to his seat. The weather in August was hot. The dugout wasn’t as well air-conditioned as in the major leagues, so it was quite unpleasant.

“Soo-won.”

“Yes.”

“Is what you said yesterday still valid?”

Huh?

“No, why, you said yesterday that after the tournament, you’re not going straight back to Korea, but you’re planning to get some coaching at a place called the NBM Center in New York before returning. And you said you’d include me if I was interested.”

I definitely said that yesterday.

I was talking to the agency in English, and they suddenly said I was very good at English and asked me what I was talking about, so I inadvertently started talking about the NBM Center.

And when they seemed a little interested, I explained it a bit and subtly recommended it. Of course, if you ask if that was purely for Baek Ha-min, it wasn’t.

In fact, it looked better for the ace of the national team to get lessons at a pitching studio in the United States and for the youngest member who shared a room with him to stay behind, rather than for the youngest member to stay in the United States alone while all the other players returned to Korea after the tournament.

Of course, he showed some reluctance at the time when he heard the price.

But the fact that he’s showing interest again now is probably because he’s directly tasted the spicy taste of MLB draft’s upper rounds and advanced baseball?

2:6

Baek Ha-min’s eyes, staring intently at the scoreboard, shone unnecessarily moistly.