Chapter 9 — The Moment They Fall Silent
Unexpectedly, the first three batters on our team failed to show anything impressive.
The opposing pitcher was obviously a freshman.
Their ace was probably being saved for games against stronger regional teams.
That should have been good news for us, but our guys seemed unfamiliar with a breaking-ball-heavy pitcher they had never faced before.
Geum Taesang, Park Jageun, and Kwon Geonwoo had all gone down, mixing outs and strikeouts between them.
They glanced nervously in my direction.
I spoke casually.
“There’s no reason to lose confidence over a single at-bat. Watch the pitches carefully. Once the batting order goes around once, his command will start shaking.”
I was certain of it.
Why?
Most high school pitchers still didn’t have fully developed stamina.
Because of that, after throwing around thirty or forty pitches, their command usually started to slip a little.
That was especially true for a left-handed pitcher who relied heavily on breaking balls instead of his fastball.
After easily shutting them down in the first inning, I had an even easier time in the second.
I didn’t know what instructions they had received from the bench, but they were trying to attack my fastball aggressively.
“How is this actually working?”
Yoon Jaejun asked with genuine curiosity.
I chuckled.
“Stop acting like some guy sitting behind a desk when you’re the one standing on the field.”
He would understand once he gained more experience.
There were times when studying things from behind a desk was important.
But the most important thing was always what was actually happening on the field where you were playing.
Through two innings, I threw seventeen pitches.
Every single one was a fastball.
Maybe because of the fairly high RPM, the opposing hitters couldn’t square them up properly.
“Jaejun, just prepare properly for your next at-bat. The pitcher’s going to be a little shaken because of me.”
I tossed my glove aside and put on my batting gloves.
The opposing pitcher was a left-handed overhand pitcher.
Our team seemed to have struggled in the first inning because lefties were uncommon and because he threw so many breaking balls.
Still—
He was just a kid.
137 km/h
Maybe he knew I had thrown nothing but four-seam fastballs through the second inning, because he opened with the same pitch.
I calmly watched it go by.
The pitch had even less life than I expected.
Even though this was only the weekend league, each team played just one game against the other, meaning every matchup was basically a short series.
And in short series, unfamiliar pitchers became much more valuable.
120 km/h
This time, a slow curveball came toward the inside part of the plate.
I watched that one too.
Applause came from the Bundang Yatap High side.
Apparently, they were being careful because I was batting cleanup.
Fastball and curve.
Earlier, he had also thrown a slider and a forkball.
Did this kid think he was some kind of pitcher with a thousand faces?
First, he had thrown a straight fastball.
Then a sharply dropping breaking ball on the inside.
Anyone could guess what was coming next.
He would assume my eyes had been drawn inward and throw a slider that broke horizontally toward the outside.
130 km/h
A decent-looking slider came toward the outer half of the plate.
Exactly as I expected.
Judging by the sharpness at the end, this was probably his finishing pitch.
Crack!
I swung without hesitation at the ball that was about to enter the outer edge of the strike zone.
Normally, in your first at-bat, you shouldn’t react too quickly to the opposing pitcher.
You needed to watch a few more pitches and figure out what kind of process he followed.
Like fishing.
You waited patiently.
The pitcher turned his head toward the outfield as the ball sailed away.
The left fielder ran after it, but soon gave up.
1–0.
The moment the home run landed, the Saeum High bench and stands erupted.
As I stepped on each base, I thought about a hitter named Frazier, Cincinnati’s on-base king.
Whenever that guy saw me, he would sometimes sit me down and lecture me about the basics of getting on base.
What had he said again?
During the first at-bat, you had to patiently watch the pitcher’s pitches until the very end.
There was a good chance the pitch sequence for the rest of the game would be built around that first encounter.
No matter how much the catcher tried to change the sequence, pitchers weren’t perfect.
Eventually, like salmon returning upstream, they tended to drift back toward the locations they were most comfortable throwing to from the beginning.
If the slider was the pitcher’s finishing pitch, then with two strikes, a left-hander would usually throw it from outside the zone and break it back toward the edge.
That was the pitch I had been waiting for.
“Here, towel! Great job!”
“Seong-ah! Nice one! I knew you could do it!”
The players gave me high fives.
I simply smiled along with all the praise.
Then Park Seonghyeon’s emotional voice rang out again.
“Seong-ah! Thanks to that home run, we’ve just set a new record! It’s been two whole years since we scored the first run of a game with a home run, and this is the first time we’ve ever scored first in an opening game! And scoring within the first three innings has only happened three times in team history, which is another incredibly rare record, and—”
...And so on.
Still, I took Park Seonghyeon’s words seriously.
He remembered every single record.
He checked the condition of everyone around him.
He genuinely loved baseball, and he treated the people around him well.
The only problem was that our current roster was simply too weak.
If he eventually joined the coaching staff of any decent team, he would definitely show what he could really do.
Of course, we might get a glimpse of his strategic side ourselves around May or June.
Yoon Jaejun stepped into the batter’s box next.
I quietly gave him some advice.
“The opposing pitcher’s finishing pitch is his slider. Once you have two strikes, don’t miss it. He’ll almost definitely throw it outside.”
I gave the same information to the other hitters on the bench.
When the first three batters stepped up in the opening inning, they should have acted like scouts.
They needed to tell the rest of the team what they had seen and felt from the pitcher.
Now that I had demonstrated it, everyone would probably start doing the same thing.
Even if you failed to reach base during your own at-bat, sharing anything unusual you noticed with the team was extremely important.
“Got it.”
After hearing me, Yoon Jaejun entered the batter’s box with a tense expression.
Of course, after taking the first strike, he attacked a four-seam fastball and sent it into center field.
A flyout.
“It’s fine. You did well.”
If he had just a little more power, that ball might have gone over the fence.
At my words, Yoon Jaejun’s expression brightened.
Once he developed a little more strength, he could become a pretty decent home run hitter.
“We can win too!”
The next batter, first baseman Park Byeonggyu, shouted loudly as he stepped into the box.
Of course, every hitter after me was retired.
Even so, hope had appeared for a simple reason.
They knew which pitch was most likely to come as the finishing pitch.
That meant they weren’t losing the mental battle anymore.
Because of that, they were making solid contact far more often.
“Are you seriously going to keep throwing nothing but fastballs?”
Yoon Jaejun kept asking me.
This was after the Bundang Yatap High hitters had gone through the lineup twice.
“I’ve only given up three hits.”
“That’s true, but... won’t they start getting used to your fastball soon?”
“No chance.”
I could say that with confidence.
So far, only four opposing players had reached base.
One reached on an error.
