Chapter 58
Chapter 58
There’s no professional baseball player without a routine, but our team’s starting pitchers had especially unique routines.
First, Gale picks one of the opposing pitchers and watches video of them. He mutters things like, “Hmm. I’m better, though?” It seemed he deliberately chose the pitchers with poor stats, but we decided not to interfere.
Next, Danny. His routine was simple.
“Hailey. Will you give Dad some of your winning energy today too?”
He joked around with Hailey to loosen up. If she looked sleepy or drowsy, he would immediately find Nana or Producer Oh Na-eun to take care of her.
Senior Lee Dong-hoon played mobile games. He had asked me for help a few times, but lately he spent time mostly with seniors Park Hyun-woo or Kim Min-ki. Sometimes he even looked for me.
Senior Oh Kyung-soo… well, he didn’t seem to have a visible routine, but he would pick one of the balls he’d set aside in the locker room and treat it as a lucky charm.
“All of these are yours, right?”
“...Maybe.”
When I asked, Min-seok avoided my gaze.
“Ahem. What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Thinking about it, you don’t really have a routine.”
“Well, I used to, but at some point I stopped.”
“Why?”
“No matter what I did, I couldn’t win. So it felt meaningless.”
Min-seok’s eyes seemed lost for a moment.
“You don’t step on the line, right?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
He did it every time—stepping on the line, then running back to avoid it. He repeated this constantly.
These routines didn’t form for no reason. They either produced good results, boosted confidence, or avoided jinxes.
Jinxes emerge from repeated coincidences.
For example, you give up a home run while wearing the exact same socks as the day before, or you hit a slump after eating the same meal as the previous day. Small, random things can snowball into full-fledged jinxes.
“The atmosphere is intense, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.”
Min-seok whispered, worried someone else might hear. Our dugout was tense. Now I understood why senior Ha Seo-jin had been cautious.
Jinxes are terrifying. Especially the ones visiting us now weren’t just individual—they were team jinxes, like the Curse of the Billy Goat or the Curse of the Bambino.
“What do we do?”
“Well, there’s a way.”
“Really? What?”
“You have to confront it until it breaks.”
Just like those curses faded naturally once teams won championships, this jinx would vanish if we performed in August. The problem was, with the current atmosphere, no one would dare try.
There were methods I could think of, but the mood made it impossible to attempt them.
“Let’s focus on what we need to do first.”
The opposing starter was Conan Gray. Even against a normal lineup, expecting one run was hard—but with this mood, it would be even tougher.
As expected, the top of the first ended in a clean three-up, three-down. On my way to the mound from the bullpen, I made eye contact with senior Ha Seo-jin. I nodded, and he ran to his position. My neck felt unusually stiff, but I shook it off while warming up. The opponents, not Ha Seo-jin, were my concern—the Wolves’ hitters.
The Wolves’ leadoff batter was Kang Jae-sung.
A .271 average and .344 on-base percentage were mediocre for a first batter on a team like the Wolves. There were actually similar hitters on their team with better stats than him.
So why did he bat first? He was excellent at relaying information to the batters behind him while perfectly executing the manager’s strategy.
The Marines’ battery’s first goal was to disrupt that.
“First pitch as planned.”
Min-seok sent the sign nervously. The first pitch went low and outside. It might seem odd to pick Kang Jae-sung’s favorite low-outside pitch, but that was just the ordinary pitch.
The moment the ball left my hand, it danced in a steep drop.
“Strike!”
Kang Jae-sung instinctively swung at his favorite pitch, only to miss, stepping back with a sigh. Min-seok exhaled in relief.
“The movement is good.”
No matter how well it was checked in the bullpen, the knuckleball was different on the mound. Luckily, today both bullpen and mound performance were perfect.
“I’ll throw more.”
Another knuckleball. The sign came, and I got into position.
“Strike!”
A slightly outside pitch fooled him again for a swinging strike. The ball was unfair to the batter—it approached, then escaped if he swung. That was a huge burden on the catcher, too.
“Strikeout!”
“Exactly!”
Min-seok pumped his fist, ignoring Kang Jae-sung’s glare. Watching the 148 km/h four-seam fastball, the strikeout was confirmed. For a batter like Kang Jae-sung to take a called strike after two strikes, without the previous knuckleball ruining timing, was almost impossible. Combining a 110 km/h knuckleball with a 150 km/h fastball from nearly the same motion was nearly as difficult as choosing between “Mom or Dad?”
When second batter Lee Jin-wook came up, Min-seok immediately sent the sign.
He was a good contact hitter and handled fastballs well, but his batting average dropped drastically against fastballs over 150 km/h.
“Strike!”
Even when the fastball came to his favorite spot, he couldn’t react. 156 km/h. He frowned, noticing the speed. Fast, yes, but he could still hit it if he wanted. But for him, the first pitch fastball would be the last.
Crack!
The bat barely connected, and Lee Jin-wook stopped running shortly after. I retrieved the ball and tossed it lightly to first base.
Next was Lucas Ramirez, facing me for the first time. The switch hitter stepped into the right-handed batter’s box.
Hitting a knuckleball, many batters think, “Just hit it, it’ll go far.” Ramirez thought the same. But the other Wolves batters looked at him pitifully.
Correct, but the premise was wrong.
“The ball won’t connect.”
“Strikeout!”
Three knuckleballs, three swings, and Lucas Ramirez struck out. Even the Wolves fans expecting a home run—or at least a big hit—lost excitement instantly.
Yet when Conan Gray ended the inning in a three-up, three-down, showing why he was a “Marines killer,” the atmosphere recovered. By the end of the third, only 30 minutes had passed, foreshadowing how the game would unfold.
“Thirty-seven pitches…”
Manager Lee Jung-hwan watched me walk toward the dugout after a clean third inning. It was the fourth time facing me this season—early, midseason, All-Star, and today.
The first matchup, he thought I was an ordinary knuckleballer and prepared a stolen-base strategy. But reaching base was tough, and even if he did, excellent pickoff prevented success. The second time, he managed to score using the weather, but then gave up 14 consecutive strikeouts.
During the All-Star game, he faced me again. “I can’t hit him.”
In that short time, I had improved further. Even mixing an ordinary fastball with a knuckleball, I could reach 160 km/h. Manager Lee, who had worked harder than anyone to plan against me, had to accept reality.
I was a disaster in the KBO. But the championship couldn’t be given up. The approach changed. It wasn’t about me—it was about the Marines. Under my shadow, the team still had exploitable gaps, which widened in August.
“If we drag it out until Park Si-woo leaves, we’ll be fine.”
Throwing fastballs meant I couldn’t throw 100 knuckleballs easily. All I had to do was outlast me.
But the pitch count was low.
“At this rate, he’ll pitch until the ninth.”
“Should we show the ball?” the head coach asked. I shook my head.
“No, it’s the same. Eight first-pitch strikes already today.”
The batters couldn’t watch the ball—eight out of nine got a first-pitch strike.
“If Conan Gray goes past 80 pitches, we’ll get Gyeong-jun and Seong-hoon ready,” Manager Lee thought. The point today was whether the Wolves’ pitchers could hold out until I left. If we held the Marines scoreless, it wasn’t impossible. The bullpen fight would allow them to beat the struggling recent setup.
The Marines, burdened by losing streaks and jinxes, swung too easily. Conan Gray, known as the “Marines killer,” easily handled them. By the fourth inning, he had allowed only two hits.
Crack!
Kang Jae-sung gambled on the first pitch after striking out last time. The ball went toward Cha Jae-hoon. With a fast runner on base, he hesitated. Luckily, Cha stayed focused. Min-seok caught the ball, and Kang Yoon-woo reached to make the out. Video review confirmed it. Manager Lee pressed his temple. “Too bad, but there’s still plenty of opportunity.”
Lee Jin-wook and Lucas Ramirez couldn’t even make meaningful contact and struck out. By the fourth inning, no runner had reached first.
Manager Lee exhaled, trying to erase the unease from the last game.
“It’s fine.”
Senior Cha Jae-hoon approached, tense. I patted him. He hadn’t allowed a runner anyway. Everyone was clearly on edge.
“From this inning, I’ll pitch.”
We decided to wait until the tension eased, ending it with me and Min-seok.
“Okay.”
The tension included Min-seok too, but I trusted him.
“I’ll pitch, trusting you.”
“Alright, I’ll keep my promise too.”
Promise? What promise?
After two outs, Min-seok swung three times and returned to the dugout.
“…Si-woo, home run seems tough.”
Hadn’t we agreed to ignore that?
“It’s fine.” Lack of run support wasn’t new, and the pitcher wasn’t easy.
The bottom of the fifth began with cleanup hitter Park Moon-ho. A massive presence, usually batting third, moved in the lineup due to the foreign batter swap. He had tried stealing on me before and hit over 20 home runs annually.
I placed three fingers on the ball for the sign. A hard knuckleball came inside.
Tap!
“Foul!”
Aggressive, but it was a ball. The pressure was that even slightly off, it could clear the fence. Still, no rush—if he reached base, he was slow anyway.
The second pitch went outside. Observing his aggression inside, he likely wouldn’t react outside.
Whooosh!
“Strike!”
Two strikes as expected. Min-seok rose. High fastball.
“Ball!”
No matter—just for show. Now preparation was complete.
Splitter.
Precision wasn’t perfect, but the drop was flawless. Sliding the ball between my index and middle fingers, I threw it. The batter, expecting the high fastball, couldn’t resist the pitch aimed at the center.
“Strikeout!”
The ball dropped sharply, producing massive drop. Naturally, the bat didn’t reach it. Min-seok and I made eye contact. It worked.
After that, it was easy. Right-handed batters were retired in order using the splitter.
“Good job, Hyung.”
Even Min-seok’s catches were impressive under pressure. He smiled awkwardly instead of responding.
During cleaning time, no one approached me. It wasn’t due to jinxes this time.
Through the fifth inning: zero hits, zero walks, zero errors.
I hadn’t allowed a single runner.