The Pitching Coach's Nose for Talent
The extra-inning battle between the Hawks and the Kingdoms became an instant sensation, exactly as everyone expected. Fans of teams whose games had finished early all flooded into the broadcast of that single matchup.
And no broadcasting network in the country was about to let an opportunity like that slip away.
Baseball Tonight, the TV program that analyzed the day's game live on air, devoted the entire broadcast to it.
"After a battle that stretched all the way to the bottom of the eleventh, the Daejeon Hawks have taken the victory. This matchup between the two teams was being called an early preview of the Rookie of the Year race. Commentators, what were your thoughts?"
The first to speak at the female anchor's prompt was Park Taek-gyu, one of the legendary sluggers in KBO history.
"I want to give credit to both teams. Honestly, I thought they showed a level of play where it was nearly impossible to say who had the edge."
"Then what was it that ultimately separated the winner from the loser?"
"I think crisis management was the deciding factor. Kwon Jae-hyuk gave up the runs he was going to lose anyway and kept pitching his game, but Han Jiseong charged at every batter like he was determined to strike out the entire lineup. That's exactly why he served up the game-tying two-run homer to Kang Hyuk."
At that, Song Geon-hwi, the former pitcher who had been listening quietly, opened his mouth.
"I can understand where Han Jiseong was coming from, though. It wasn't just about the Rookie of the Year title — a pitcher's pride was on the line. Of course, Kang Hyuk's monster performance ended up overshadowing everything, but I think it'll be a game he learns a great deal from."
"Kang Hyuk is already being mentioned as a candidate for the March–April Monthly MVP. What do you two think?"
"Isn't that already a foregone conclusion?"
"Agreed."
Park Taek-gyu clicked his tongue.
"A batting average in the mid-.300s with an on-base percentage flirting with .500 is astonishing enough, but nine home runs? I've seen plenty of hitters who excel at either contact or power, but I've never seen this type of hitter before. And he's not even a player with years of professional experience — he's a straight-out-of-high-school rookie."
"Do you think Kang Hyuk can keep performing at this level for the rest of the season?"
"I'd say that'll be tough. The pro league schedule is absolutely unforgiving. Catching is one of the most physically punishing positions there is, so I expect he'll hit a wall as the season wears on."
Commentator Song Geon-hwi, who had been listening, offered the opposite view.
"I believe Kang Hyuk's performance will last a long time."
"What makes you say that?"
"Everything else about him is remarkable too, but one of the main reasons I rate Kang Hyuk so highly is his eyes."
"His eyes?"
"I don't just mean that he has a good batting eye. He's a player who knows how to read the situation and make the right call. Call it baseball intelligence, if you like."
"I see."
"Players like that tend to have long careers, you know? And considering he's already being called a once-in-a-generation talent, I think we can look forward to a lot more from him."
The live chat window exploded.
Whenever a seat opens up, someone arrives to fill it. With Choi Dong-hyuk and the underperforming bullpen arms demoted to the second team, new faces began appearing at Daejeon's home park.
So that's Jung Woo-young.
A pitcher with a young face and a lean, wiry frame — one class above me in the draft. This was Jung Woo-young.
Taken in the first round of the 2028 draft, he'd been praised for the command to paint the zone with a fastball that averaged 150 km/h.
But like most high school aces, he'd logged a workload in national tournaments that bordered on outright abuse — and last year, the toll caught up with him in the form of elbow surgery.
Fortunately, his rehabilitation seemed to have gone smoothly; word was that his second-team appearances had been problem-free.
I hope he pitches well for us.
Regardless of how well the starters had been throwing lately, our bullpen kept suffering through its own private agony. Early in the season the bench coach and the pitching coach had seemed to get along fine — nowadays their arguments had grown frequent enough to notice.
Well. Not really my problem.
And so, while I was training in the weight room as usual, treating it all with total indifference, the pitching coach came looking for me.
With Jung Woo-young in tow, no less.
"Hyuk."
"Yes?"
"Sorry to interrupt your workout. Any chance you could catch for us a bit?"
"Of course. But… would it be all right if we waited until I finish my lifting?"
"Absolutely."
Jung Woo-young, apparently visiting the first-team weight room for the first time, wandered around eyeing the equipment with wide-eyed fascination.
His coach hastily reeled him back in.
"Hey, hey — don't go touching things. You'll hurt yourself again."
"……"
I wrapped up my personal training faster than usual and headed to the practice bullpen with the coach.
"Which pitches will you be throwing?"
"Everything I can throw. Let's start with the fastball."
At the coach's instruction, Woo-young set into his delivery.
Whoosh—
Pop!
The heavy impact settling into my mitt made me startle.
Not bad at all?
They say that thanks to advances in sports medicine, post-surgery velocity loss isn't nearly what it used to be. His rehab must have been quite the success.
The coach checked the radar gun.
"146 km/h. Shall we build the speed up gradually?"
"Yes."
Whoosh—
Pop!
The movement on Jung Woo-young's fastball was considerable. His release point was fairly average, but his extension — dragging his body forward off the mound — and his deception in hiding the ball were excellent.
On top of that, while nothing extraordinary, his command put the ball right around where the mitt asked for it.
Once he'd loosened up to a certain extent—
Whoosh—
Pop!
"154 km/h!"
At the sight of his top velocity, the pitching coach broke into a satisfied smile.
I turned to Woo-young.
"Shall we move on to your other pitches?"
"Sounds good."
"What offspeed stuff do you have…?"
"In high school I threw mostly a slider and a changeup."
I nodded.
Standard pitch design.
There was a saying that the slider was the easiest pitch to learn and yet one of the most effective — high-value stuff. Unlike starters, relievers who only logged a few innings often got through games on just two pitches: a four-seamer and a slider.
"Slider, then, please."
Whoosh—
Thud—
I caught it cleanly, then had to work hard to keep my expression in check.
That's… underwhelming?
The break angle itself wasn't bad. But the velocity gap with a fastball approaching 150 km/h was too large, and the ball started bending so early that it announced itself as an offspeed pitch long before it arrived.
I couldn't help thinking of the high-velocity slider Han Jiseong had thrown at me recently.
"Hmm……"
"What do you think?"
"Looks good to me?"
He was my senior, after all, so I served up something pleasant to hear — for now.
"Want to try a changeup too?"
"Sure!"
The changeup that followed was equally disappointing.
His breaking stuff is lacking compared to that fastball.
Chances were the feel for his offspeed pitches had gone rusty during the long rehab stretch.
Just as I was smacking my lips over it, the pitching coach, who had been observing the session, asked me:
"So? See anything that needs fixing?"
"Fixing? Me?"
"The hitting coach said if we put a player in front of you, you'll run a custom lesson."
"……"
These old foxes.
It was true that I'd helped a few pitchers. I'd suggested Kwon Jae-hyuk turn his shoulder-loosening forkball into a genuine in-game weapon, and I'd gotten Dustin to unseal his knuckleball and use it as a third pitch.
But those were results that owed a great deal to luck.
Hitting I might manage, but when it came to pitching, my knowledge was sorely lacking. At best, whatever I'd absorbed out of the corner of my eye at Drive Baseball?
Sensing my gaze, the pitching coach studiously averted his eyes.
"Ahem……"
"Still, I'm happy to catch as much as you need."
Think of it as blocking practice, more or less. The coach's expression turned serious, and he called Woo-young over.
"Woo-young. Come here a second."
"Yep!"
"Let's take a look at that slider grip first."
What followed was an animated back-and-forth between the two of them.
Adding a new pitch to a repertoire is an enormously difficult thing. The grip itself is common knowledge —
but every pitcher's fingers are a different length and every arm angle is different, so you have to fine-tune the details for each individual. That's anything but easy.
And on top of that, you can't let it wreck the pitcher's existing pitch design or delivery, which means the process inevitably takes a long time.
There was exactly one way to break through that wall.
Throw the ball, over and over, adjusting grips and mechanics one small change at a time.
"Hmm."
As I kept receiving Woo-young's practice pitches, a low hum of thought escaped me.
Was it because I'd been watching pitchers throw so often lately? Something kept nagging at me.
In the end, the itch won out, and I blurted out a comment before I could stop myself.
"You need to narrow the angle—"
"Hm? Kang Hyuk, what was that? Narrow my arm angle?"
"No. When you throw the slider, your opposite shoulder — it opens up a little, I guess you'd say?"
In that instant, a memory from my training days at Drive Baseball surfaced.
I mostly trained in the hitting zones, so on days when Marcus had appointments, I'd pass the time watching other people work. And one man I'd watched with particular attention was Paul Gavin.
The Tempe Bay starter had a delivery remarkably similar to Jung Woo-young's. Over meals we'd shared, I'd heard him say that the thing he focused on most when throwing his slider was controlling his center of gravity.
But that's Gavin's standard, not his.
I couldn't assume the same applied to Woo-young.
"Never mind. I was just thinking out loud."
"Care to walk me through it in detail?"
Convinced it had been a slip of the tongue, I waved my hands in protest — but there was no beating the pitching coach, eyes gleaming, already pouncing on me.
"I heard somewhere that if your opposite shoulder opens up when you release the slider, the ball flies out of your hand… Of course, the break gets bigger that way, but what Woo-young needs right now seems to be a hard slider that plays off his fastball."
"……"
"It's just something I overheard, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt."
"No, no. Let's try it."
I took hold of Woo-young's shoulder and walked him through his delivery in slow motion.
"As you throw, keep your weight centered, and feel like that opposite shoulder stays closed—"
Whoosh—
Pop—!
A heavy silence fell over the bullpen.
Anyone who knew even the first thing about baseball would have seen it.
This pitch's trajectory was nothing like the earlier sliders. The drop angle had shrunk, but the ball now carried movement much closer to his fastball's.
The stunned stares of the pitching coach and Jung Woo-young bored straight into me.
"How did you…?"
"Kang Hyuk. Have you ever thought about becoming a coach?"
Even I was a little dazed by how fast it had worked.
Do I… have a talent for teaching?