Busan Away Series, Game 2 (1)
Title: The Only Bright Spot in Our Thoroughly Defeated Bastard Urbans Today…
Title: Slow-Motion Footage of Jang Han-sae Retiring Seong-bin Jwa
Title: Jang Han-sae's Combined Pro League Stats… holy crap
Jang "THE MR. ZERO" Han-sae.
Simply put: the GOAT of pitchers.
Myo A-rin, visiting the gallery for the first time in a while, let a contented smile spread across her face.
"Looks like the kids are finally learning how to actually watch baseball."
Barely a few days ago, opinion of Jang Han-sae in the gallery had been overwhelmingly negative — so much so that A-rin, who almost never left so much as a comment online, had gone to the trouble of writing a full-length defense of him.
And now he had become the one player on the entire roster whom nobody dared to insult. If anything, the situation had inverted completely: whenever a post criticizing Han-sae appeared, packs of Ban-boong-i would swarm it, dogpiling the author with every vicious insult in the repertoire.
Han-sae had flipped the verdict on himself purely through his pitching — nothing more, nothing less.
Catching the fever herself, A-rin clicked the "New Post" button for the first time in ages.
(Link to the post)
By the time she'd finished gleefully typing out her post and hitting upload, "that fixed-nickname user" had already materialized and left a comment of their own beneath it.
"Seriously, what the hell is this person?"
A-rin wandered the gallery for a good long while after that, and the moment the baseball broadcast began, she dropped everything and planted herself in front of the TV to watch.
Busan away series, Game 2.
After getting blown out by the Titans in a lopsided loss yesterday, our team was being dragged around by the collar again today, flailing against their starting pitcher without an answer.
"Bottom of the fifth — the Urbans have surrendered the opening run yet again. Now making his way to the mound, once more, is Jang Han-sae. In four appearances and 3.1 innings this season, he has struck out four and kept his ERA at a perfect zero, and that pitching clinic continues tonight."
"He's a fun pitcher to watch, isn't he? I'd say he's a style of pitcher unlike any other in the entire world."
"That's right. The question is whether that march of zeroes can go on."
I stepped onto the mound and glanced up at the scoreboard.
Down three to nothing. Two outs, runner on first.
If I gave up even a single run here, the entire momentum of the game would swing to the other dugout for good. My job was to slam the door shut without surrendering anything and give our offense a floor to stand on when the rally came.
The real problem is that our hitters can't touch the Titans' starter at all.
But worrying about that got me nowhere. That was a battlefield I had no control over. So I decided to focus on the one thing I could do in this exact situation: not give up another run.
"Whew—"
My catcher today was Ho-ji.
All three of those runs had come in this very inning, charged to the Titans. Which meant the roar of the home crowd was hotter than it had been all night.
"Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!"
More than enough unity and lung power to put pressure on an opposing pitcher.
Brutal.
Yesterday I'd come in during a relative lull, so I hadn't realized it would be like this. Suddenly I understood why so many visiting starters had cratered the moment they set foot in Sajik Stadium.
"Ma! Hey, you Jang bastard! You'd better get it right today! Just nail it, all the way!"
How exactly am I supposed to stay calm when they're threatening me at full volume?
I steadied my breathing and took a good look at the batter.
The number-eight hitter — someone I'd already faced yesterday. An easy out on paper, but I couldn't afford to get careless. In baseball, anything can happen.
"WOOOOOAH~ Let's go! HIT!"
Man, they are HYPED. Hyped out of their minds.
So how did I throw cold water on that kind of atmosphere? Getting the batter out without letting him do a thing? That was the baseline — the default setting I'd take for granted. I needed to add something extra on top of that.
Was there anything out there that would sting even worse? A strikeout? Too obvious, too expected. The bottom of the order didn't carry much hope anyway, and they'd already scored — so what I needed was something more deflating. Something that hit like a slap in the face.
A pickoff.
Possibly the most hollow out in all of baseball. A runner doesn't work his way on and then bag a steal — he just stands there taking his lead, and gets erased by a casual throw from the pitcher. Nothing kills a stadium's energy faster.
And right now, there was a runner standing on first base.
A lefty would be the natural pick for a pickoff attempt.
A left-handed pitcher faces the runner at first as a matter of course. A right-hander, by contrast, stands with his back to first base, which puts serious constraints on any pickoff throw.
Switching hands was no trouble for Korea's one and only switch pitcher — but throwing an actual pickoff throw left-handed? That was a different story.
I've done nothing but pitching practice, day and night, so…
And then it came to me — that report A-rin had put together, analyzing me with her own eyes and hands. Dozens of pages, made just for me. That day we'd pored over the material together, talking through everything that touched on my game performance.
"Look at this. Something about your left-handed delivery is just slightly off. Especially when it comes to holding runners — the one advantage a lefty is supposed to have — you get zero benefit from it. I'm sure the coaches have already called it out, but…"
Of course they had. Throwing to first right-handed had always felt natural, but I'd never once done it left-handed. All my practice had been hurling a ball into empty air, so nothing about holding runners felt comfortable to me.
On the training footage playing on her iPad, there I was, awkwardly glancing over at a phantom runner at first.
"I honestly never thought beyond 'can I throw a decent ball with this hand.' Pickoffs didn't even cross my mind."
And this was training done in a fully choreographed situation with no real pressure, and I was still balking left and right, or releasing the pickoff throw so badly the ball squirted loose. My pickoff motion was so telegraphed that deceiving a runner was simply impossible. The coaches knew it too, which is why they'd drilled me on it — but fundamentals like this are usually finished before a player ever turns pro, so they clearly had a harder time with me than they expected.
Which meant their coaching had been reduced to a baffled "Why can't you do this, exactly?"
"So I went and found a method tailor-made for you."
"You did? Even our coaches couldn't manage that."
A-rin wore the confident look of someone about to win an argument, and queued up a compilation of my pitching.
"And what exactly is this method?"
"Did you see it? Your single greatest strength is that no matter what you throw, your motion barely changes. Yes, if you dissect it frame by frame, there are microscopic differences. But anyway — you apply the exact same principle to pickoffs."
"The exact same way?"
"Right. Your motion doesn't change because you're consciously throwing every pitch so the batter can't tell what's coming, isn't it?"
"Correct. I'm always throwing with the mindset of 'this is the same pitch as always.'"
"Pickoffs are identical. Just approach them exactly the way you approach pitching."
"But then it's a balk."
"Then you make sure it isn't one."
Easy for her to say.
"That's why I've been researching a pickoff method custom-built for you. All you have to do is follow this, step by step."
How was she this brazen about it?
"Fine. Let's hear it."
"So here's how it works…"
I listened to A-rin's explanation with zero expectations — and her method was absurdly simple. Yet when it came to coaching a left-hander on holding runners, it landed harder than any instruction I'd ever received.
All right. Let's try it.
The opposing batter stepped into the right-hand batter's box — but I slid my glove onto my right hand, gripped the ball in my left, and set my foot on the rubber.
Choi Ho-joon, shortstop for the Busan Titans, planted on first base and studied Jang Han-sae on the mound with careful eyes.
Facing a right-handed hitter, so why is he throwing left-handed? Eh — doesn't matter either way.
Two outs, runner on first. His team had plated three runs in this very inning.
"Bu-u-san gal~mae-gi~! Busan gal~mae-gi~!"
The Titans' anthem — the famous Busan seagull song — rolled through Sajik Stadium like a wave.
In an atmosphere like this…
He was locked in a battle for the starting shortstop job, which made this the perfect situation to try something. His legs were quick enough that he was often deployed as a pinch runner, and he intended to test them with a stolen base right here.
According to the opposition analysis team, Jang Han-sae's average velocity was on the slow side, and he had known weaknesses both in holding runners and on defense — aggressive baserunning should pay off against him. There wasn't a single reason not to run.
Watch and learn, everyone.
He stretched his lead inch by inch, narrowing his focus onto every twitch the pitcher made. A moment later, the pitcher's face — which had been turned toward first base — swung around to the catcher.
A small, settling nod. Definitely a sign being confirmed.
Then the set position. The pitcher's hand disappeared into the glove.
Ho-joon stretched his lead one more half-step.
Amateurs wait for the moment the pitcher lifts his leg. Amateurs.
Ho-joon's eyes were locked on Jang Han-sae's face.
The real tell is the head. That instant right before he delivers, when he tucks his chin — THAT'S the truth of it.
Hunting for that single instant, Ho-joon poured every nerve he had into the pitcher. And then — the pitcher raised his lead leg and dipped his head.
Now!
Fixing his eyes on second base and nothing else, Ho-joon exploded into a full sprint.
"Huh?"
The ball that should have flown into the catcher's mitt thudded instead into the first baseman's glove.
Caught in the rundown, Ho-joon was finally tagged out by the second baseman taking the relay — and the rally he'd been part of dissolved into nothing.
"OUT!!"
The fever that had been burning through the stadium collapsed in an instant, like a fire doused with a bucket of ice water.
"MA!! YOU SON OF A—!!"
Even inside that frozen silence, one furious old-timer's roar still blazed hot — and it drove straight into Ho-joon's ear.
"How… how the hell? My timing was perfect. I know it was…"
All Choi Ho-joon could do was stare blankly at Jang Han-sae's back as the pitcher walked away from the wreckage, utterly hollow.