A Completely Different Pitcher
The moment Han Doyoon's shocking first inning of his return game ended, the baseball community exploded. Within five minutes of the first-inning highlight clip going up, the comments had already blown past several hundred.
The moment his velocity jumped more than ten kilometers an hour, the inevitable flood of doping accusations poured in.
A minority still tried to throw up a shield for him.
But then—
In the end, the community settled on a single consensus.
There's no explanation for this except drugs.
"Hmm…"
And Park Haeun was no different.
"…This is weird."
As a baseball fan, she hated watching people brand a player a doper just because his stuff had improved — but even she couldn't make sense of a change this extreme.
"Is this… actually possible?"
A second-year statistics major at Hankuk University, Park Haeun looked at baseball a little differently from most fans — especially most female fans.
Maybe it was the major. She loved the numbers hiding behind the game more than the electric home runs or strikeouts that lit up a stadium. She liked forecasting a player's next season, quantifying performance, and explaining every phenomenon on the field with cold logic.
Some people sneered that nerds like her were ruining baseball. To Park Haeun, it was the most fun game in the world.
So the "unexplainable velocity spike" in Han Doyoon's return start wasn't just gossip to her.
It was her favorite kind of puzzle.
"…Ugh, I can't do this."
Click. Click.
She closed all five games she'd had running. On the left side of the screen she pulled up Han Doyoon from the first inning of tonight's return start; on the right, Han Doyoon from three months ago, still wearing a Seoul Wales uniform.
On the dual monitor she put on the live broadcast of the Seoul Wales versus Wonju Flyers game.
"…I have to look. I need to see exactly what changed."
Park Haeun slipped the hair tie off her wrist. She swept her shoulder-length brown hair up in one motion and tied it tight. A few messy bangs fell across her forehead.
The oversized hoodie swallowed her small, slender frame almost whole. But the eyes glittering behind her round glasses were sharper than any analyst's.
"Hup!"
An errant pitch has been thrown!
Crack!
"He got a piece of it! The ball is carrying deep — but the left fielder tracks it down and makes the catch!"
Waaaaaah!
"Han Doyoon gave up a hit to the leadoff man, but retired the next three batters in a row. Through three innings, both teams remain scoreless at 0–0. The balance holds."
"Han Doyoon! Han Doyoon!"
As I came off the mound after finishing the third, Flyers fans roared my name.
A clean first inning had given me confidence, and I rode that momentum straight through.
Three innings. Two hits. Four strikeouts.
Just as expected — hitters seeing my stuff for the first time couldn't time it even when I left one over the heart of the plate.
"Nice pitching!"
Kwak Daehwi gave me a light slap on the rear as I stepped into the dugout. His face was full of smiles; he clearly liked what he'd seen.
But even with the praise, the last ball kept looping through my head.
That last one… was a little too close.
It was the second hitter, Park Taehyung. Having already seen my stuff once, he didn't miss the pitch that leaked over the middle — he yanked it hard.
Fortunately the ball had so much life that it got under the barrel a touch and became a left-field fly out. But in that moment, I was sure.
Time to start mixing things up.
"Uh, hyung-nim."
I went straight to Kim Gyeongmo.
"Hoo… what?"
He was busy peeling off his catcher's gear and didn't even look my way.
"That thing. I think we need to start it next inning."
"…You sure you're okay with that?"
Kim Gyeongmo caught my meaning. He stopped stripping the gear and looked at me. Last night we'd talked about switching to Crossfire once the order turned over, but even then his face had been half-doubtful.
"I'm fine. And you know as well as I do — from the next time through the order… it's going to get ugly."
Kim Gyeongmo pulled off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. He thought for a second, then gave a small nod.
"Yeah. I figured it might."
He could feel it too — the hitters were starting to adjust to my pitches.
With his agreement locked in, I headed for the bullpen. I considered clearing it with the manager, but given how he always left everything to the battery during games, there didn't seem much point.
"Hello, sir."
The bullpen catcher, who'd been lying down, jumped up in surprise the second I walked in.
"What the—?!"
A starting pitcher walking into the bullpen mid-game was rare. Almost unheard of. No one with half a brain wasted rest time for their arm like that.
"I'm just going to throw a few and head back."
Even in the middle of a game, if I was changing my delivery, I needed to feel a few of them myself.
And the moment the bullpen catcher faced my secret weapon—
"W-what is this…?"
—he was, quite literally, speechless with shock.
"Bottom of the fourth now, and the Flyers take the field on defense."
The color commentator's voice was as even as ever.
"Han Doyoon has been in a really strong flow from the jump today. Three innings, two hits, four strikeouts. He's left a few pitches over the plate, but the life on the ball is so good the hitters just can't square them up."
A batter stepped in. The camera found Han Doyoon on the mound. Beneath the brim of a cap pulled low, a faint, knowing smile touched the corner of his mouth — but no one caught it.
"All right, first batter of the bottom of the fourth."
Han Doyoon checked Kim Gyeongmo's sign and nodded. Then he slowly lifted his left leg. His body tilted, just slightly, toward third base.
That was the moment.
"…Huh?"
The color man stopped mid-sentence. Something was off. The pitcher's movement was clearly different from usual.
Han Doyoon's left leg drove out not toward home plate but hard toward third. From that angle his body surged forward, and the coiled twist in his hips exploded.
Whoooosh—!
The ball looked like it was coming straight into his body. The batter flinched back on pure instinct.
But—
"S-strike!"
The ball punched into Kim Gyeongmo's wide-open mitt like an awl. Dead center of the strike zone.
Even the umpire stammered a little at the unexpected trajectory.
"Whoa — hahaha… did you just see that?"
The color commentator laughed in disbelief, voice shaking.
"Han Doyoon just threw from a completely different delivery."
"H-he was basically looking toward third when he released that, right?"
The play-by-play man sounded rattled.
"Yes, exactly. The release point was completely shifted off to the side."
Excitement climbed into the color man's voice.
"People usually call that Crossfire. But what he just did…"
"Whoa, I've never seen anything like that."
The play-by-play man breathed out in awe.
"Neither have I — not twisted that far. Look at the batter. He's completely frozen! Check Bae Seonjin's face. He's locked up!"
In the box, Bae Seonjin kept blowing out long breaths, pride clearly stung by how badly the pitch had rattled him.
"Han Doyoon said he'd show a different look. Is this how different he meant?"
Park Haeun had both monitors side by side, sorting data.
Then it happened.
The volume on the dual monitor running the live broadcast suddenly spiked. The color commentator's excited voice filled her little studio apartment.
"Whoa — hahaha… did you just see that? Han Doyoon just threw from a completely different delivery!"
Haeun's fingers froze over the keyboard.
"…A different delivery?"
She slowly turned her head toward the broadcast. On screen, the replay of the pitch Han Doyoon had just thrown was rolling.
"People usually call that Crossfire. But what he just did…"
"Whoa, I've never seen anything like that."
As the commentary continued and her eyes confirmed the posture, Park Haeun's pupils went wide.
She had watched countless pitchers — domestic and overseas — but a Crossfire that extreme was something even she had never seen.
"I-is that even possible…?"
Through three innings, a near-textbook overhand. From the fourth, an extreme Crossfire.
She opened the database in her head, searching for any pitcher of this type. It didn't take long.
There's no way a pitcher like that exists…!
Color started rising in both of Park Haeun's cheeks.
"…What the hell are you?"
Her fingertips drifted slowly across the screen. In her gaze there was none of a researcher's cool detachment — only a feverish, almost manic fixation.
"Haa… haa…"
Every time Han Doyoon's delivery looped on replay, her eyes sank deeper into the image.
"I can't do this from here…"
Park Haeun shoved her chair back and stood. Her voice was shaking.
"…I have to see it. In person. Right now."
And without even realizing it, she threw on a coat any which way and stepped out the door.