Opening Day (1)
"After a long, long winter, spring has arrived, and at last the season we've all been waiting for begins. The Busan Mariners and the Wonju Flyers — their Opening Day matchup raises the curtain right here at Mariners Field. Hello to baseball fans across the nation. This is caster Han Myeongseok, bringing you today's broadcast."
On a day in late March when the chill still hadn't fully lifted, the curtain rose on the 2025 professional baseball season with Han Myeongseok's call. It was a clash between the Busan Mariners, who had finished fourth last season, and the Wonju Flyers, who had finished dead last.
Before the game, Busan Mariners manager Choi Seongwon gathered his squad for a meeting.
"How's everyone feeling?"
At Choi Seongwon's question, the players' eyes locked straight ahead.
"Good, sir."
"No problems."
Hearing the steely resolve in their answers, Choi Seongwon nodded.
"Good. Then I'll keep this short."
He swept his gaze once over the players lined up in front of the dugout.
"What's our goal this season?"
"A championship!"
"That's right. A championship."
Choi Seongwon's voice dropped lower.
"You all felt it last season. If you want to win it all, you can't phone in a single regular-season game. And an Opening Day like today even less so."
Not a single pair of eyes wavered.
"You prepared properly for today's game, right?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Yes, sir!"
Short, clear answers. Choi Seongwon nodded.
"Good. Go out there and win!"
With that single line, the meeting ended — short and sharp. The players clapped each other on the shoulders and headed for the field. Watching their backs, Choi Seongwon found last season's memories flickering through his mind.
The Busan Mariners, who had finished the regular season in fourth and dreamed of a miracle run. The most gut-wrenching moment had to have been Game 5 of the playoffs, when the series loss was sealed by a double play off the bat of the team's superstar, Han Ijun. But there was a memory that had lingered even longer than that.
Late in the season — a three-game series against the Wonju Flyers.
At the time, Busan was in fourth and Wonju was in tenth. At the very least, they should have taken a winning series.
Instead, the result was a shocking sweep.
Because of that, Busan lost the momentum to climb into third, finished the season in fourth, and had to enter the postseason from a disadvantageous position. The grueling schedule that began with the Wild Card drained the squad's stamina at a brutal pace, and in the end they hit their limit in Game 5.
Fans, players, coaches, the front office — none of them could scrub the thought from their minds: If only we'd taken that Wonju Flyers series and climbed into third, everything would have been different.
That was why.
The moment the Busan Mariners heard their Opening Series opponent was the Wonju Flyers, they lit up with fighting spirit. And for Game 1 of the Opening Series, the first name they put on the chopping block was starting pitcher Han Doyoon.
To prepare for a four-seam fastball that scraped the mid-150s, the hitters spent an entire week dialing the pitching machine up to 160 km/h and swinging away. The coaching staff and analytics team dissected every pitch Han Doyoon had thrown last season down to the finest detail.
The pattern was simple.
Against right-handers: a binary choice between four-seam and slider.
Against left-handers: lead with the cutter and induce weak contact.
They had analyzed him thoroughly. Every preparation was complete.
We will never get burned the way we did back then.
And yet—
"Swing and a miss! Strikeout! Han Doyoon records 160 km/h yet again for his thirteenth strikeout!"
"Wh-what the hell is this…!"
In the bottom of the sixth, when the Busan Mariners' at-bat once again ended in a three-up, three-down, Choi Seongwon's face hardened to stone.
The preparation had been perfect. Or rather — he had thought it was perfect. But something about Han Doyoon was clearly, unmistakably different.
"Nice!!"
"Doyoon's looking good today!"
After closing out the bottom of the sixth with a KKK and returning to the dugout, cheers poured in from my teammates. It was still only the sixth, so celebrating felt a little premature — but with a 6–0 score, the squad was already buzzing.
Six innings. Not a single baserunner. A staggering thirteen strikeouts.
On pure performance alone, there was nothing to criticize.
And yet—
…This is actually working?
I was just dazed.
A month ago — the day I'd lost that bet to Kwak Daehwi — I'd steeled myself for whatever training he was about to dump on me. What he said instead was completely unexpected.
"Okay, then starting tomorrow, stop training and study some baseball."
"…Excuse me? Study what?"
I was so thrown that a blank answer just tumbled out.
"From where I'm standing, your stuff is more than good enough. But you're a little… how do I put this. You don't use your head."
I'd always prided myself on being an intelligent pitcher, so I nearly flared up on the spot — but I managed to hold it in and asked calmly.
"Then which part exactly…?"
"The club just beefed up the data analytics department and brought in a new analyst. Go learn from them. I've already given them a heads-up."
Since I'd made a promise to Kwak Daehwi, I headed over to the analysis room at the base camp.
"Oh, right. And listen carefully, got it?"
"Yeees~"
Honestly, I wasn't sure what "studying baseball" even meant. I already knew the rules well enough, and whenever I needed batter tendencies or team-by-team data, I'd just check them as they came up.
It's a physical sport anyway. How much studying could there really be…
Thinking that, I opened the analysis room door—
"Huh?!"
A face I never expected was staring back at me.
"Haeun-ssi, what are you doing here?"
"Haha…"
Park Haeun gave me the short version — how she'd spotted the Flyers' analyst job posting, prepped for the interview, gotten the offer, and joined the team.
"Ah… so that's why you were so busy back then."
"Yeah… I saw the posting and was putting a portfolio together…"
Park Haeun trailed off, looking sheepish. I'd known she was serious about baseball, but I never imagined she'd come in as an analyst.
"Oh — and that thing you said back then, about how there would be plenty of chances…?"
"Yeah, that's right… I'd already passed the interview by then. Heehee."
Park Haeun scratched her head with a little laugh.
"When did you start working?"
"About a month before spring camp…?"
The moment she finished speaking, Park Haeun hurriedly pulled a stack of papers out from under the desk.
"Then… shall we get started right away?"
"Right now?"
"Yes… there are a lot of players waiting. Sorry."
"Ah, no, it's fine. Let's get started then."
As far as I remembered, last year almost no one went out of their way to visit the analysts…
Ugh. Of course.
I let out a short sigh inwardly. These guys weren't here for analysis — they were just coming to see Park Haeun.
What are they, middle schoolers faking sick to visit the pretty school nurse? Grown men, honestly…
No wonder her dark circles looked especially deep.
Park Haeun unfolded the papers one by one and began explaining.
"Calling them 'problems' for Doyoon-seonsu feels a little off, but I'll go through a few things that would make you even better if you fixed them. First, location—"
And what followed from Park Haeun was the exact opposite of every baseball common sense I knew. At the same time, the more I listened, the more it made perfect sense.
Bottom of the seventh. I took the mound again.
The leadoff hitter was a righty. First pitch: a high fastball jammed inside.
— Whoosh!
"Strike!"
The bat spun clean through empty air, and I took the first-pitch strike with ease. I'd lost count of how many times I'd thrown that exact location today. And every single time, the hitters had been completely helpless.
Second pitch: a low slider away. I meant to put it in the zone, but—
— Tick.
"Ball."
It nicked just off, and this time it was called a ball.
A little more command on this one.
— Whoosh!
Another swing and a miss, and I easily locked in a one-ball, two-strike count.
Now it was a choice. Throw that high inside fastball from the first pitch one more time, or go back to the slider away.
My choice was—
— Whoosh!
"Strike, out!"
"Bottom of the seventh, and Han Doyoon strikes out the leadoff hitter yet again! That's strikeout number fourteen!"
The slider away, one more time.
A truly simple pattern. A mid-to-upper-150s four-seamer planted high and inside, then a low slider away. I'd run that pattern all game long, and it worked again.
Next batter: a lefty.
Simple again. First pitch: a cutter planted high and inside.
— Crack!
It caught the bat, but only the handle, and dribbled back behind the catcher.
Second pitch: a slider diving in toward the body.
— Tick!
The batter bent his knees and just managed to get the bat on the dropping slider.
The mishit ball floated back foul.
Having easily locked in an 0–2 count, I paused for a moment of thought.
His timing on that slider was pretty early. In that case…
I settled on the slider in my head and looked the batter over once.
But then—
…This guy's sitting on the slider.
A subtle shift in the batter caught my eye. Just a fraction, but he was clearly standing a little farther forward than before.
Okay. Then we go four-seam.
I worked the PitchCom and called for a four-seamer. Kim Gyeongmo flashed his mitt wide open, signaling he understood.
And the third pitch—
— Whoosh!
— Whack!
The batter's bat came around late on the high fastball away and spun through nothing.
"Strike, out!"
Strikeout number fifteen.
This, too, was a pattern I'd used all game — and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the batter never even touched the ball. Under the relentless weight of my strikeout show, even the famously raucous fans of Mariners Field had gone dead silent.
Next up was the six-hole: veteran catcher Kang Hoseop.
He punched a slider away into a lineout to first earlier.
Top of the second — one of the few in-play balls I'd allowed all game, and he was the one who'd produced it.
So I decided to throw in just a little variation.