Chapter 51

Chapter 51, Trying to Be Clever?

My pitch probably hurt quite a bit.

The slider had been around 143 km/h.

At first, even I had been worried.

If it had hit him while he was completely unprotected, there was a good chance he could have suffered a hairline fracture.

But he had skillfully let the ball hit his protective guard.

On top of that, his arm had been inside the strike zone.

...Trying to be clever?

Sacrificing your body to change the flow of the game.

Some people might call it fighting spirit.

To me, it was simply something that made irritation surge inside me.

Your body was not meant to be used that way.

If your skills were not good enough, then you should keep training instead of relying on tricks.

Loud boos poured from the stands.

They were not aimed at me.

They were for the opposing batter.

Anyone could see that he had deliberately leaned into a pitch entering the strike zone instead of trying to hit it.

Top of the first.

A bench-clearing confrontation happened on the very first pitch.

“Can’t you throw the damn ball properly?”

“He did throw it properly! Your guy put his body inside the zone!”

The opposing captain and our captain, Kim Hak-seong, collided loudly.

No one managed to get near me.

The Oceans players had surrounded me like an iron wall just in case.

“You don’t need to worry, Master.”

I had experienced every kind of bench-clearing confrontation in the Majors, so I did not care.

I simply stared calmly at the opposing batter.

If he wanted to reach base that badly, why not improve his actual ability?

I hated players who treated their own bodies carelessly.

If that pitch had caused even a tiny fracture, he could have been out for at least two months.

Why would he treat his own body like that?

“Seong, you okay?”

After the confrontation ended, Yoon Jae-jun casually came to the mound and checked on me.

“I’m fine. I’m just a little irritated.”

“Yeah. Looks like they even prepared that bench clearing just to shake you. Don’t worry about it.”

Yoon Jae-jun seemed surprised by my unusually emotional reaction.

That made sense.

I had never openly shown irritation on the mound.

“Ah, I’m fine. By the way, every hitter from one through nine is left-handed, right?”

“Yeah. Looks like they prepared specifically for you.”

“Okay. Jae-jun, can you call everything mostly outside?”

“Hmm... We should be able to. Your four-seam is good today, and you have plenty of breaking balls.”

I nodded.

“Then call the game well. I’ll follow you. I’m going into this game planning to shut down every single one of them.”

Yoon Jae-jun’s face brightened.

“Thanks for trusting me, Seong.”

His skills had been improving incredibly quickly.

Not only his physical ability, but his baseball intelligence as well.

Shut them all down.

The runner on first kept dancing back and forth, exactly as expected from a leadoff hitter.

I did not care.

Yoon Jae-jun even gave me a pickoff sign toward first, but I shook my head.

Go if you want.

158 km/h.

A fast four-seam attacked the outside edge against the left-handed batter.

“Strike!”

The second hitter sighed at the overwhelming speed.

At the same moment, the runner from first sprinted toward second.

The timing was so perfect that Yoon Jae-jun could not stop him.

There was a reason.

Even with a runner on base, I had intentionally refused to use a quicker motion.

I had pitched from a full windup exactly as I would with the bases empty.

That made stealing second easy.

Second pitch, screwball.

Yoon Jae-jun asked for a chase pitch moving away from the left-handed hitter.

I nodded.

130 km/h.

The relatively fast screwball looked as if it would enter the strike zone, then suddenly moved away.

The batter swung and missed again.

158 km/h.

An even faster four-seam entered outside.

The batter could only watch.

Three-pitch strikeout.

I retired him easily.

The runner at second kept watching me carefully.

I did not care.

Go wherever you want.

160 km/h.

Another fast outside four-seam.

At the same moment, the runner at second rushed to third.

There was no chance to catch him.

So what?

161 km/h.

Another blazing outside fastball.

The batter could not even time it properly.

I kept attacking with fastballs.

Four-pitch strikeout.

Two outs.

I calmly looked toward third base.

The opposing team clearly looked confused.

I still did not care.

Maybe it’s time to pick him off now.

I looked at Yoon Jae-jun and smiled.

As if responding to that smile, I quickly threw toward third.

This time I used a clean quick motion.

The runner at third panicked and tried to touch the base.

But he was too late.

Daniel Sanchez had covered the bag a moment earlier.

“Out!”

The inning ended with the umpire’s call.

For a moment, the entire stadium became silent, as if someone had thrown cold water over it.

Then the Oceans fans understood what had happened and erupted.

Yoon Jae-jun offered me a high five.

“Your stuff looks even better than usual. Something happen?”

Nothing special had happened.

I was simply a little annoyed.

I smiled without showing it.

“Nothing. I’m just pitching like usual.”

Yoon Jae-jun gave me a strange look.

Yoon Jae-jun thought quietly.

Had Choi Seong ever smiled on the mound?

More precisely, had he ever smiled even once after stepping onto the field as a pitcher?

Maybe as a hitter.

But as a pitcher, never.

Yet now, while walking off the mound, he had smiled more brightly than anyone.

“That bench-clearing thing must’ve seriously pissed him off.”

Maybe that was why his pitches felt different.

Heavier somehow.

Even on the bench, Choi Seong kept smiling in a way completely unlike himself.

The other players actually approached him first because of it.

“Something’s weird...”

They had already played baseball together for more than a year.

Even so, seeing Choi Seong act like this on a start day was strange.

He normally maintained a perfect poker face no matter what happened.

Yoon Jae-jun carefully observed him.

Bottom of the first, Busan Oceans at bat.

Kwon Geon-woo reached with a hit, but Choi Seong and the other hitters were all retired.

Yoon Jae-jun was one of them.

“You’re really okay, right?”

Choi Seong smiled again.

“Why? Do I look different?”

“Not exactly...”

“Don’t worry. I’m concentrating.”

Yoon Jae-jun did not understand what he meant.

But he trusted him.

Choi Seong was the reason he had reached this point.

“Let’s keep attacking outside.”

“But we’ll probably only be able to do that through the third inning.”

Choi Seong laughed.

Then shook his head.

“You know that isn’t true.”

Yoon Jae-jun swallowed.

Choi Seong could mix a four-seam fastball, slider, circle changeup, power curve, curveball, and screwball.

Normally, though, he mainly used his four-seam, slider, and power curve.

His personal theory was that the other pitches increased his injury risk.

“Seong, if you get injured doing that...”

“That won’t happen. I’ll mix in the other breaking balls too. They provoked us first. We should finish what they started.”

At that moment, the umpire signaled for Yoon Jae-jun to return.

Yoon Jae-jun made his decision.

Through the third inning, he would attack mainly with the four-seam and slider.

He did not understand why Choi Seong wanted to risk so much in a relatively unimportant game.

But if that was what Choi Seong wanted, he would follow.

Choi Seong had been the biggest reason Yoon Jae-jun became Korea’s home run leader.

Without him, Yoon Jae-jun might still be wandering around the minor leagues.

No, he might not even have made his professional debut.

First pitch, outside four-seam.

That was Yoon Jae-jun’s sign.

No matter if the opposing hitter was batting fifth in the heart of the order.

It did not matter.

Choi Seong’s pitches were going to become the greatest pitches in history anyway.

“Strikeout!”

Even though they mixed only the four-seam and slider, opposing hitters fell one after another.

Strikeouts.

Fly balls.

Ground balls.

By the end of the third inning, Yoon Jae-jun began wondering what to do next.

“Strikeout!”

He started mixing screwballs and sliders.

By the end of the fourth, Choi Seong already had eight strikeouts.

Except for four hitters, no one had even touched the ball before being retired.

The first batter remained the only baserunner.

“Believe me now?”

“Y, yeah!”

Yoon Jae-jun answered in confusion.

Choi Seong’s pitches were more overwhelming than ever.

The team had scored two runs through four innings.

But Choi Seong himself was hitless in two at-bats.

Other than Yugam’s completely unexpected two-run home run, the team had failed to score.

164 km/h.

The overwhelming speed appeared on the scoreboard.

The more Choi Seong pitched, the faster he became.

He struck out two more hitters in the fifth, reaching ten.

Only then did Yoon Jae-jun realize something.

No way...

There were games every pitcher dreamed of.

A perfect game.

A no-hitter.

Because the first batter had reached on a hit-by-pitch in the first inning, a perfect game was already impossible.

But a no-hitter alone was an overwhelming achievement.

“Don’t think about it.”

Yoon Jae-jun quickly regained his composure.

He remembered something Choi Seong had always told him.

Getting excited too early always leads to defeat.

It was both a life lesson and a baseball lesson.

Yoon Jae-jun kept sharpening that mentality.

160 km/h.

He trusted Choi Seong’s stuff.

The hitters eventually began sitting on outside pitches.

Still, he never called for an inside pitch.

Swing after swing missed.

Thirteen strikeouts.

One hit-by-pitch.

Fans continued adding more and more “K” signs in the stands.

Kim Byeong-hee clapped with a flushed face, saying nothing.

Meanwhile, Yugam hit another completely unexpected solo home run.

3-0.

It really was absurd.

This was the first time in Yugam’s life he had hit home runs in consecutive at-bats.

Choi Seong kept smiling.

He even roared after strikeouts, acting completely different from his usual self.

Was he enjoying the game?

Or was he putting on a show for the opposing team?

“Strikeout!”

Amid the endless parade of strikeouts, one thing became obvious.

The opposing hitters were never going to hit Choi Seong’s pitches today.

Seven innings passed.

Fourteen strikeouts.

Every opposing hitter complained to Yoon Jae-jun.

“What the hell is wrong with him? Did that thing earlier awaken Choi Seong or something?”

Yoon Jae-jun could not answer.

He silently gave signs and mixed various breaking balls.

The reason was simple.

He did not want to create even the slightest obstacle on the road Choi Seong was walking.

Silently following behind him was what Yoon Jae-jun needed to do.

Pitch after pitch either entered the strike zone or broke outside it.

Pitch count, 100.

That was the usual limit for an ordinary pitcher.

After striking out the first batter of the eighth, Choi Seong finally reached it.