Busan Road Trip, Game 2 (3)
Yang Ho-ji stepped into the batter's box, turning Han-sae's advice over and over in his mind.
"Lim Dae-woong doesn't blink when he throws his fastball. He blinks on breaking balls. And it feels nothing like the unconscious blinking we all do without thinking."
If Han-sae says it, I can trust it.
That was one of the images of Han-sae saved in Yang Ho-ji's memory — the guy who could read an opponent's traits better than anyone else alive.
For now, just watch the ball as long as I can. Once my eyes get used to it, then I can start hunting.
With that thought, Ho-ji bored his gaze straight into Lim Dae-woong's face on the mound.
The catcher nodded.
They've settled on a sign.
Lim Dae-woong's eyes locked completely onto Ho-ji's stare.
Windup and delivery.
Lim Dae-woong's eyes didn't blink.
"Strike!"
A fastball riding the outside corner.
Just like Han-sae said — a fastball.
Ho-ji drew his bat up tight and waited for the next pitch.
The second pitch.
This time, Lim Dae-woong's eyes blinked.
Breaking ball!
Again, exactly as Han-sae had said, the ball left Lim Dae-woong's hand and dove sharply downward and in.
In this count, that's a pitch he's trying to bury.
Watching the catcher, Ho-ji stacked his intuition layer by layer.
Just as predicted — a breaking ball that collapsed toward the bottom of the zone.
Han-sae's theory is holding up so far.
Bases loaded.
Any ordinary man would be shaking, but Ho-ji kept his composure and picked through the pitches one by one, slow and patient.
By the time the count ran full, he had no choice but to admit that Han-sae's theory fit perfectly, pitch after pitch.
"Hoo—"
The probing was over. Now was the time to attack for real.
Ho-ji knew exactly which corner of the zone a battery would choose in a bases-loaded, two-out, full-count duel.
Predictable. Obviously.
The question was the pitch type.
Win or lose would come down to what came out of that hand.
But this time, the answer to that question was laid out clear as day in front of him.
Ho-ji drew a deep breath and looked at Lim Dae-woong's face one more time.
Blink.
I'll make him regret ever deciding to face me.
The bat, drawn up tight against his shoulder, swung with not an inch of hesitation — a magnificent, full-bodied arc.
"Hyung, you look kind of sheepish."
Johnson, the next batter up, was calling Ho-ji hyung as he trotted across home plate.
"What are you talking about, Johnson hyung. I'm the younger one here."
"In the baseball world, the guy who plays better is the hyung. Hoji hyung, bro."
Grinning, Ho-ji made his way back to the dugout alongside the runners who'd been waiting for him.
"YANG HO-JI!!!!!"
Everyone, no exceptions, threw themselves at the hero of the day in a wild welcome.
"I knew this punk had it in him!!"
"Magnificent! Yang Ho-ji! That's the future of our team right there!"
"You take the starting catcher job now. I'm old and decrepit, so I'll just rest."
"Ho-ji!! I knew you'd come through sooner or later."
Surrounded by his seniors and showered with affection, Ho-ji wore the happiest expression on earth as he slipped past them all and came up to me.
"You bastard!"
"Pure bliss!"
This is what brotherhood looks like.
Like men, we shared a fiery embrace.
"What a bunch of drama queens! Are you two gay or what?"
And who, pray tell, is the one shattering the mood?
"Damn it, it's Geum Byeong-hyeon again."
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Johnson has met a mysterious death. While the rest of us were drunk on the high of your grand slam, celebrating, he went and made an out."
Say what?
"Out to the field, all of you! Han-sae, you get ready to take the mound!"
Just then, I spotted Johnson attempting to sneak stealthily into the dugout.
"There he is!"
Ho-ji shouted, pointing a finger at him.
"Hey! Johnson, baby!"
"This little punk called ME hyung—"
That was the most precisely pronounced Korean I had ever heard out of Johnson's mouth.
"You were the one calling me hyung a minute ago!"
Ho-ji protested his innocence, the picture of the wronged man.
"What, you gonna milk one grand slam for the rest of your life? If it's so unfair, go hit another one."
I burst out laughing at Johnson's sheer shamelessness.
And so, riding that wonderful atmosphere, I climbed the mound.
Don't get carried away.
A grand slam.
One of those words that drives baseball fans insane.
The ultimate dopamine explosion, the event at the very peak of stimulation — and it had just gone off.
But look at the situation coldly, and it was still 3 to 4.
A one-run ballgame.
One homer ties it, a runner aboard flips it.
A lead as thin as a sheet of ice.
All that's left is for me to do my job.
Bottom of the sixth.
I had no idea how far the manager was planning to ride me, but I had to assume it would be short — through this inning at the minimum, and depending on my pitch count, possibly as far as the eighth.
If we scored more runs in between, my outing might get even shorter.
This losing streak had to be snapped before it grew any longer. We had to win today. No two ways about it.
"Hoo—"
The batter at the plate was right-handed.
Naturally, I prepared to pitch right-handed.
Tossing practice pitches back and forth with Ho-ji, I thought carefully about how to attack this at-bat.
A hitter who had already faced me in yesterday's game.
He would have done his homework on me in every way possible.
Which meant that, as always, my job was to throw that homework straight into chaos.
Looks like I'll get to use everything A-rin and I practiced for today's game.
And once again, that day — a good memory — came back to me.
"Still, wouldn't you say I hide it pretty well, all things considered?"
"To the casual eye, sure. But to the analysts who sit there and loop your delivery dozens of times in a row, studying nothing but your motion for hours? It shows."
On A-rin's tablet, footage of me kept playing, clip after clip of analysis after analysis.
With her sharp, bright eyes and her energetic voice, she walked me through exactly what I needed to fix.
Watching her quietly like that, I found myself in an oddly good mood.
The way she threw herself into the thing she loved.
They say it's one of the moments when a man feels the strongest attraction to a woman — and honestly, they're right.
Add that gorgeous face of hers on top of it all, and...
Seriously, how did I end up like this?
"Are you even listening?"
"Huh? Right... so, when I throw right-handed over the top, I..."
"I was talking about your left-handed underhand."
"Right, right. Didn't I just say lefty under?"
"You did not. Payyy attention~ This is good for you, you know. I put in all this work preparing it."
She was different from usual today, too, somehow.
How to describe it...
Cute.
Yeah. That's the feeling.
"O-okay, got it."
By the time I'd sat through the entirety of A-rin's passionate lecture, the areas I needed to fix had become crystal clear to me.
"And then there's the thing you're already good at, you know."
"What's that?"
"Deception."
"What's that supposed to be?"
"You know what Warren Spahn said?"
"No idea? And what's with suddenly name-dropping some Warren Spahn?"
The legendary pitcher who holds the record for most career wins by a left-hander in Major League Baseball.
"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting that timing."
"So?"
"Your specialty. Scrambling what's going on inside a hitter's head. That's deception."
Switch pitching. Pitching from every arm slot imaginable. A bottomless repertoire of pitch types.
"So my entire existence is a deception, then."
"Exactly. And layer a few more things on top of that, and it becomes perfect."
1. The release point shifts subtly depending on the pitch type.
2. When throwing overhand, the grip is exposed in the instant just before release.
3. When throwing a slider from the left-handed underhand slot, the body leans further forward than with any other pitch.
4. With two strikes, there's a habit of taking a big, deep breath every time he commits to a decisive pitch.
"You get it, right? Hiding these things is what you'd call deception. And since it's tangled up with the balk rules too, we need to go through it really carefully."
"I was actually planning to study up on the balk regulations anyway. Figured I'd try every dirty trick in the book, right up to the legal line."
"Knew it. That's why I did all the homework. Now let me walk you through what to do about each one..."
"You prepared even more than this?"
"Obviously. We'd run out of night before we ran out of material."
"Really? Then, well... we could just go to your place and pull an all-nighter."
The café chairs were uncomfortable, and sure, we'd bought plenty of drinks, but sitting there for hours was bound to draw the manager's eye sooner or later.
I figured it might be more comfortable to just continue at A-rin's place, so I brought it up.
"Th-th-th-th-that's, that's a little...! You have to lea—leave early tomorrow morning! For, for Busan...? And I have to get to w—work too!"
Why on earth was she stuttering so much?
"Really? Then let's wrap it up as tight as we can. Feels like we've been here too long anyway."
"O-okay!"
And so, working from all the research she'd compiled, A-rin walked me through exactly how each flaw should be corrected.
Min Sung-il, the Titans' number eight hitter, wrapped his fingers around the bat with everything he had.
Jang Han-sae's tell — spotted by the Titans' analysis team just this morning, and passed along to him.
That in the instant of release, his grip was exposed.
Right up until he stepped into the game, Min Sung-il had run Jang Han-sae's pitching footage on repeat, burning the motion into his eyes.
With this in hand, taking this at-bat was practically the same as walking into an exam with the answer sheet.
Last inning ended on a pickoff before I could even use it, but...
He had made up his mind: he was getting on base, no matter what.
The moment Jang Han-sae began his delivery.
Exactly what grip he was holding was plain as day.
The special training paid off!
Four-seam fastball.
Doesn't matter where it's located — the first pitch is going to be a strike, right?
That, too, was intel the analysis team had uncovered.
Jang Han-sae's first-pitch strike rate sat well above the league average.
The delivery came, and Min Sung-il swung his bat with total confidence.
"What the—? That was clearly a fastball!"
A headache began to close in on Min Sung-il.