Head-On Showdown
The pitcher I would be working with in today's game was Kwon Jae-hyuk, our fifth starter.
“Hey, Hyuk. Are you seriously not nervous at all?”
“About what?”
“The media's been running their mouths about this being a preview of the Rookie of the Year race.”
“Come on. The season's only been open for a month.”
I waved a dismissive hand.
“I'm trying not to think about it.”
“Oh. So Han Jiseong isn't even worth calling your rival?”
“No, that's not what I—”
“Well, fair enough. For a guy in the MVP conversation, a Rookie of the Year title must be kids' sandbox stuff.”
Mischief was written all over his face.
Thanks to the perpetual scowl he wore on the mound, fans had nicknamed him the Tibetan Fox — but in everyday life, he was a man of many expressions. Lately, with the offense finally giving him run support and luck finally swinging his way, he'd gotten even livelier.
“So what's it like, living as the face of the ROY race? Me, I've been throwing soft-tossers since my debut, so.”
“…Please stop.”
Every word out of his mouth was drenched in mockery, so I gave up on defending myself.
It would be a lie to say I had zero appetite for the Rookie of the Year title.
But for an award decided by a writers' vote, what mattered wasn't head-to-head matchups — it was your season line as a whole. How this one game affected the ballot was vanishingly small.
All I could do was give everything to the role I was handed, every game, every at-bat. I had no intention of loading some special meaning onto a game just because I happened to be facing my rival.
Han Jiseong, huh…
He belonged to the Daegu Kingdoms, a class above me — drafted in the first round the year before. He'd spent the second half of last season working out of the bullpen and put together some genuinely solid appearances, but since he'd thrown fewer than thirty innings, he still qualified as a rookie this year.
On top of that, he'd successfully made the transition to the starting rotation this season, and he was keeping up respectable form. I'd rewatched his footage before the game; his fastball and high-velocity slider were seriously impressive.
Not that I'll get a real crack at him, though.
Let the media hype the Rookie of the Year showdown all they wanted — the picture they were hoping for was unlikely to materialize. Every pitcher facing me lately had been throwing everything off the plate and away.
I'd love it if someone just came at me straight for once.
After running into pitcher after pitcher who wanted nothing to do with a real duel, I'd started to miss the simple feel of barreling a baseball. It had gotten bad enough that I even caught myself thinking, maybe I should just get my swings in the White Room tonight.
“Sunbae.”
“Yeah?”
“If you had to face me, how would you attack me?”
“Me? Intentional walk. Every time.”
“………”
“You know what I've always complained about?”
“What's that?”
“Our own fans cursing my ERA. A late-four ERA pitcher calling himself a pro? The abuse never stops.”
“Eh, those are probably fans of other teams.”
“But see, my ERA is a compressed, real-game number that never gets to feast on the Hawks' lineup.”
“Sorry, what?”
For a second I thought I'd misheard him.
Was he seriously calling our own lineup a punching bag?
“They are a punching bag. Pitchers on other teams count down the days until they face the Hawks. It's stat-laundering day for them.”
“………”
“But ever since you showed up, when I actually think about having to face hitters… even our own lineup makes me uneasy.”
He said it like a joke, but there was bone underneath it — or was that just my imagination?
Game day.
The manager of the home team, the Daegu Kingdoms, was thinking back to yesterday.
Han Jiseong had come to see him the moment the last series ended.
“Something wrong? You hurt somewhere?”
“Manager. There's something I'd like to ask of you.”
At first the manager had assumed an injury and fretted himself sick — but once he heard the request, he let out a long breath of relief.
“You want a shot at Kang Hyuk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why? Because the media's blabbering about the Rookie of the Year race?”
“It's not that.”
“Like it isn't.”
The kid's face had it written across it in letters a meter tall: beat Kang Hyuk, prove myself.
The Kingdoms' manager tapped the desk and sank into thought.
Does he really need to?
Kang Hyuk was a batter every coaching staff in the league had marked for caution — a high school rookie producing like a foreign-import slugger, if not better. It had gotten to the point where the media was bandying about the names of the greatest hitters in KBO history.
That said, not many managers believed the hot streak would last. However locked-in a hitter looked, he couldn't collect hits if pitchers refused to challenge him — and after a month of being pitched around like that, any hitting rhythm eventually rots.
Which was exactly why, with Kang Hyuk's timing still white-hot, the manager's read was simple: there was no need to face him at all. He'd even instructed his pitchers to avoid a straight duel whenever possible.
And apparently that directive had stuck in the craw of his fiery young pitcher.
I'd rather talk him out of it…
The kid was a prized prospect the team had raised with kid gloves. His first instinct was to tell him to steer clear of hard roads. But then — if not when you're young, when do you ever learn?
If the kid shut the batter down, it would pour fuel on his momentum. And even if he lost, he'd come away having learned something.
“Do it however you want.”
“Thank you, sir.”
So there the kid stood, given full discretion, taking the mound — and Han Jiseong's eyes burned with the hunger for a duel.
Watching him from the dugout, the manager offered up a silent wish.
Just… don't let him meet a trial bigger than he can carry.
“Good evening, baseball fans! Today's matchup is a genuinely tasty one, isn't it?”
“Haha, it certainly is — two teams riding winning streaks, and they meet tonight!”
“The Daejeon Hawks and the Daegu Kingdoms. And you can't talk about either team's surge without mentioning their rookie sensations — and wouldn't you know it, the two players battling for Rookie of the Year are facing off tonight.”
“Kang Hyuk and Han Jiseong will both have all the motivation they need.”
“Exactly. What kind of game will we get? I can hardly wait! The visiting Hawks will bat first, so let's play ball!”
I was slotted third in the order today.
Leading off was Won-taek.
“Strike!”
The opposing pitcher came out pitching with real aggression. A fastball averaging 153 km/h, his signature high-velocity slider, and a changeup that stole your timing on top of it all.
Won-taek fought his way to a five-pitch duel before going down on strikes.
“Yeesh. That kid's no joke.”
“How so?”
“The slider comes in looking exactly like the fastball, then the angle just drops off a cliff mid-flight. And with that kind of velocity, you can't tell them apart until it's too late.”
“Hm.”
“He looks sharp today, too. This one's not gonna be easy.”
Shaking his head, Won-taek trudged back to the dugout. I was taking practice swings in the on-deck circle when I felt a hot gaze on me and looked up.
The pitcher on the mound was staring a hole through me.
Even with Seo Ji-hoon standing in the batter's box.
My discomfort lasted only a moment. Once Seo Ji-hoon had retired on a routine ground ball, I stepped to the plate.
“Having set down two batters, pitcher Han Jiseong now watches Kang Hyuk step to the plate.”
“You have to be careful with this one. His timing at the plate has been exceptional lately.”
“Two out, nobody on. Here's the pitch—”
Whiiish—
“Strike!”
A fastball boring right into the heart of the zone — my eyebrows twitched before I could stop them.
Whoa…
A glance at the scoreboard showed 157 km/h.
“Han Jiseong just set a new season-high velocity for today's game!”
“Haha, he means to take this batter down, doesn't he?”
I cinched my batting glove tighter. Apparently my prediction — that he'd try to dodge a real duel — had been wrong.
His stuff is legit.
Won-taek's warning hadn't been an act. It wasn't just the velocity, either — the spin rate was up there with the best of them. The ball seemed to rise out of nowhere on its way in, like it was hopping at the last instant.
As I finished sorting my thoughts, the pitcher went straight into his delivery, as if he had no intention of giving me time to breathe.
Whiiish!
“Ball.”
This time his command betrayed him — a fastball spilling off the plate away. The third pitch was a changeup diving down and out of reach.
I barely held my swing, then readjusted my helmet. Two balls, one strike.
Nothing about the opposing pitcher suggested he planned to pitch around me. Not that he lacked the stuff to justify that confidence.
This is fun.
My first straight-up duel in ages — a smile crept onto my face without permission.
He's coming right at me again this time.
I settled into my stance already resolved to swing at whatever came next.
The fourth pitch.
Whuum—
“Strike!”
“Kang Hyuk swings through it! Count is two and two.”
“That was the high-velocity slider, wasn't it?”
I'd wobbled off balance mid-swing, and now I replayed the pitch's trajectory in my head.
A slider?
A ball that flew in on a fastball's path, then simply dropped dead in front of the plate.
By now I had no choice but to give the man his due. We were barely a year apart in age — and he commanded stuff like this?
Unlike me, built in the White Room, this was what raw, honest talent looked like, I supposed.
So how do I play it?
I'd sunk countless hours into training in that white space, but that didn't mean I could hit everything. Even with the same slider, its shape shifted with the pitcher — his arm slot, his grip, his release.
…First, let me just enjoy this.
Unlike the past weeks of being forced to flail at pitches that darted off the plate, here was an opponent attacking me with everything he had. The count favored the pitcher, sure — but I was actually savoring the situation.
I made up my mind to take a cut at it first.
With the ball's movement not yet fully read, forcing a real swing would only end in a weak contact out. Better to spoil it foul and make him pay for every pitch.
Tik—
“Foul.”
Tik—
“Foul.”
‒ Kang Hyuk's bad habit is flaring up again……
‒ The foul-spoiling games have returned, holy crap……
‒ At this point shouldn't we just call it "playing keep-away with the pitcher"?
‒ Wow. How does he even cut a pitch over 150km?
‒ Jiseong, stop throwing. You torched the bullpen yesterday, there's nobody left to bring in today.
‒ How is there a baseball player named after the Korean soccer GOAT lmaooo
‒ ??? Isn't the Korean soccer GOAT Heung-min hyung?
‒ Obviously it's Jiseong. Didn't everyone skip sleep till dawn for every Man United match?
‒ Wrong.
‒ Hey. How old are you, kid?
‒ Watch the baseball. Soccer fanboys out!
‒ But for real, is Kang Hyuk actually grinning this whole time??
‒ He's just thrilled at the thought of tormenting the pitcher……
‒ That dude is evil.
‒ Stop bullying our Jiseong T_T
‒ Huh?! The ball's GONE!
‒ ASDFGHJKL that thing is flying over the net.
‒ You've gotta lay out for that one at least!
‒ Even a 5-meter-tall catcher isn't grabbing that one, buddy.
“Ball.”
After a ten-pitch war, I'd finally worked my way aboard with a walk. Holding off on that last changeup all the way to the end was what did it.
Before putting my stolen-base glove back on, I raised a thumb toward the pitcher who'd fought me so beautifully.
Though — was it just me, or did his face crumple a little at the sight?