At the Threshold of Hope

I threw the first pitch with the crossfire delivery, and just as expected, the batter looked thoroughly rattled.

A satisfied grin spread across my face on its own. I straightened my uniform and muttered under my breath.

Lucky a wild pitch showed up on the first one.

My control had still been shaky all the way through bullpen work, yet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the very first pitch—

—the notification flashed and the ball planted itself dead center over the plate.

The sudden change in form, the pitch more polished than anyone expected. The batter still stood outside the box with his bat in hand, staring blankly at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. It looked like the trajectory of that pitch still hadn’t sorted itself out inside his head.

I lightly caught the ball Kim Gyeongmo tossed back and set myself for the next pitch. The batter still hadn’t stepped in. Bat resting on his shoulder, he was boring a hole through me with his eyes alone—a mix of shock and wariness written all over his face.

I let out a short snort and waved my glove at him.

What are you waiting for? Get in there.

Of course he couldn’t hear me, but I made the gesture clear enough: What are you doing standing out there?

It was an open provocation.

His face hardened at that simple motion. He bit down hard on his lip and slowly stepped into the box. Every single step carried unmistakable caution.

Watching him, a memory from high school suddenly surfaced. Back then, the moment I took the mound the entire opposing lineup would tense up. With overwhelming stuff and numbers that always put me at the center of attention, I was naturally the number-one threat every batter had to watch for.

Like herbivores when a lion prowls nearby. They kept me in the corner of their vision while desperately trying not to show how scared they were.

The batter in front of me wore that exact same look.

And the best way to hunt herbivores like that was—

“Hup!”

“Strike!”

—to teach them the clear hierarchy right away.

“One-fifty-seven! Han Doyoon just shattered his own personal best velocity again!”

The caster couldn’t hide his excitement at the new career high—not just for this game, but for Han Doyoon’s entire pro career.

“Heh heh…….”

The color commentator seemed too busy simply savoring the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pitch; he only let out a dry laugh and said nothing more.

Then came the second pitch.

Whoosh!

The batter’s bat sliced empty air. When the velocity flashed on the broadcast screen, the caster narrowed his eyes.

“……Was that a slider just now?”

Anyone could see it had been a slider—the big, late break that slid off the end of the plate. But 151 km/h was far too fast to call anything a slider by ordinary standards.

“Ah…… that pitch just now…… I think it might have been a cutter?”

The color man didn’t sound entirely sure either, his voice rising at the end.

“A cutter? With that kind of break?”

At the caster’s follow-up, the color commentator studied the monitor and slowly nodded.

“He’s throwing from the crossfire delivery. The release point is shifted more than a meter to the right, so the trajectory looks way more extreme than it actually is. The optical illusion is severe.”

“So you’re saying what we’re seeing is heavily exaggerated compared to the real movement of the cutter?”

“Exactly. But with that angle…… to the batter it just looks like a slider. A 151-kilometer-per-hour slider.”

The batter in the box still stood holding his bat, staring into empty air as if replaying the path the ball had taken. He hadn’t even decided yet whether it had been a cutter or a slider.

In my usual pitch mix I never threw cutters to right-handed hitters. The cutter is optimized for inducing ground balls against opposite-handed batters. Against same-handed hitters the break isn’t big enough and the drop is minimal, so a slider is simply better—there’s no real reason to throw the cutter.

The reason I started throwing cutters to righties came down to something Kim Gyeongmo said during practice.

“Doyoon…… from a batter’s perspective, this is going to look like a slider.”

A cutter thrown from the crossfire delivery broke even harder than its actual path. To the hitter it might as well have been a low-150s slider.

And one more thing.

Whoooooosh!

A wild pitch triggered and the ball’s destination was locked in as “dead center.” But that was not how it looked to the batter at all.

“Whoa!”

Thud.

Anyone could see the ball was headed straight for his ribs. The batter instinctively leaned away, lost his balance, and toppled backward onto his seat.

And right after that—

“Strike! Out!”

The umpire’s firm call rang through the stadium.

Dead center. A perfect strikeout.

Just as the cutter’s movement had been amplified, my slider’s break had also turned monstrous. Without much exaggeration, it was the kind of pitch that raked across the entire plate.

So the ball the batter thought was going to hit him instead planted itself, like a lie, right in the heart of the strike zone.

A four-seam fastball boring in on a diagonal,

a cutter that looked like a slider,

and a slider with an angle you couldn’t hit even if you knew it was coming.

It was an arsenal perfectly designed to hand right-handed hitters a death sentence.

“Doyoon, you planning to keep throwing like that from now on?”

Kwak Daehwi asked while I was reviewing the pitch data so far in the dugout.

“Hmm…… I’m not sure. Probably just for today.”

“That’s a waste, though. You only practiced this for two weeks, right?”

I understood where Kwak Daehwi was coming from. Watching hitters swing and miss at pitches that were landing dead center, of course it felt wasteful.

But—

After switching to the crossfire in the fourth, the fifth inning had been nearly perfect.

Five innings, three hits, no walks, no runs.

If I just kept this up, six innings and three runs or fewer was well within reach. Once I cleared the “Third Journey” today, the penalty would ease somehow. There was no need to keep relying on something as extreme as the crossfire.

It’s not like it has no drawbacks either……

“Then why’d you even practice it?”

“I just saw it in the majors and tried copying it. It felt decent, but after throwing it in a real game today I don’t think it really suits me.”

I brushed it off casually and picked up my glove.

The sides changed, and only the final sixth inning remained. Survive that one inning and the Third Journey would be complete. My heart was pounding.

But baseball always starts with a single crack.

Crack!

“A pulled ball—inside the line! Fair! He strolls into second with ease—leadoff double for Kang Hanyeong!”

The ball rolled hard down the outfield line. The right fielder chased it desperately, but it had already reached the wall.

The crossfire’s weakness had shown itself. It was overwhelming against same-handed hitters, but opposite-handed hitters saw the ball clearly. That was an unavoidable structural flaw.

Yeah, getting hit is possible.

Giving up a hit to the lefty Kang Hanyeong was understandable. Still no runs, still a comfortable situation. I steadied my breathing and focused on the next batter, ninth hitter Park Seongjun.

But then—

Thud!

“Ah! Hit by pitch!”

The ball slipped out of my hand with a short cry, and Park Seongjun walked down to first.

In an instant it was nobody out, runners on first and second.

The air on the mound that had been perfect just moments earlier twisted strangely.

I covered my face with my glove. I didn’t want the batter to see the flustered look. Inside, though, a sense of crisis was already crawling up my spine.

……The lineup has turned over again.

The reason I’d been able to dominate so thoroughly wasn’t just pure stuff. There had been the element of “unfamiliarity.” The first time through the order I crushed them with velocity; the second time I switched to the crossfire and became a completely different pitcher. Even when wild pitches appeared, the hitters couldn’t even time them.

But now it was different. Consecutive baserunners from the eighth and ninth hitters had brought the top of the order back around.

……I should have gotten outs from the eight and nine spots.

According to the original plan I should have had two outs by now—or at least one. Failing that, there shouldn’t have been any runners on base.

I was supposed to set that up, induce contact, and then fill the remaining outs with a little help from luck.

Instead it was nobody out, first and second.

And next up was the leadoff hitter, Kim Yeongseon.

I would have to navigate this crisis without the weapon of “unfamiliarity.”