Prayer Meta
“Walk Gong Ji-hoo?”
In the smoking room, Seoul Wolves manager Dong Sang-guk eyed the analysis team leader with open distaste as the man puffed away on a cigarette right in front of him, manners be damned.
“Hey, I never said walk him.”
The team leader offered a clumsy smile.
“Just throw pitches that barely miss the zone.”
How was that any different from walking him?
Truth was, no one on the Seoul Wolves had paid Gong Ji-hoo any attention at first. His name carried too much weight—the wrong kind of weight.
That was before the Wolves’ ace, Do Jeong-hoo, gave up a home run to him and muttered, “Whoa… that kid can really hit.”
Do Jeong-hoo was not a pure power pitcher. Even so, he was the best. Not just on the Wolves, but across the entire KBO. His record proved it. The body of work he had built was beyond comparison with any pitcher in history, and this season had been no different.
Still, Do Jeong-hoo was a starter. Unlike Oh Jin-muk, he had surrendered home runs this year. For a pitcher of his caliber to openly call someone a good hitter was rare enough to turn heads.
From that moment, the Seoul Wolves started watching Gong Ji-hoo closely.
And then—
“You know what? Gong Ji-hoo is a truly bizarre player.”
Inexplicable. They realized he was doing something no one else could.
“This guy only swings at pitches inside the zone. He has never once swung at a pitch that left the zone—not even by the width of a sheet of paper.”
Conversely, he swung at nine out of ten pitches that entered the zone, and nearly all of them produced positive results.
Hearing that, Manager Dong Sang-guk simply said, “So he’s got a good eye. Why the fuss?”
“This shouldn’t be possible. You know that, skip. Unless he’s got an actual strike zone burned into his brain, there’s no way.”
Still—
“It’s a small sample, not even a full month. Eventually it’ll regress to just ‘pretty good.’”
Gong Ji-hoo’s stretch of dominance had been far too short.
“That’s probably true… but even so, Gong Ji-hoo’s plate discipline is terrifying. If he keeps even half of the numbers he’s putting up—”
Do Jeong-hoo’s greatest natural enemy would be Gong Ji-hoo.
At those words, Dong Sang-guk’s expression turned serious. Seeing it, the analysis team leader pressed on.
“Gong Ji-hoo swings extremely rarely. You could call that ordinary caution for a patient hitter…”
Low swing aggression was nothing unusual among players who played “eye baseball.”
“But this kid isn’t a careful hitter either. He usually puts the ball in play within three pitches.”
What do you make of that, skip?
“A genius who finally shines five years after joining the league. Nice story. And he even overcame psychological trauma with some special solution? Come on—what player has a story this dramatic outside of a novel?”
But—
“Is he really free of that trauma completely?”
Runners on first and third. At the plate stood one of the league’s premier power hitters.
Even so, Dong Sang-guk’s eyes stayed locked solely on the runner at first—Gong Ji-hoo.
“You know what I thought the first time I heard about that kid?”
Here we go again.
The coach figured it was just the usual griping about the analytics department, but he answered with genuine curiosity.
“What did you think, skip?”
Workplace survival was hard everywhere.
“Bullshit. That was my first thought. Some flash-in-the-pan who might not even keep flashing suddenly becomes Do Jeong-hoo’s biggest nightmare? Does that sound right to you?”
“Of course it doesn’t…”
Dong Sang-guk exhaled a long sigh.
“But you know what that suit said next?”
“No idea…”
“He said they knew the odds weren’t high either.”
“Then why say it at all…?”
“Isn’t preparing for the worst-case scenario their whole job?”
So I couldn’t exactly stop them.
“When they say they’re covering the worst case, how am I supposed to shut it down…? Feels like managers keep losing power in this game every year…”
“Oh, come on—never. The reason we finished first in the regular season is all thanks to your brilliant leadership—”
“Hey.”
Dong Sang-guk cut off the coach who had smoothly launched into flattery.
“Even brown-nosing needs to make some sense. Let’s be real. This team can aim for the top no matter who’s sitting in the manager’s chair.”
That was the Wolves. A starting rotation led by Do Jeong-hoo that no other club could touch. A lineup without overwhelming stars but full of steady producers. Plus an analytics team that dissected opponents’ weaknesses with surgical precision.
In truth, Dong Sang-guk himself had almost nothing to do.
“You hear what the fans call me? ‘Spectator Guk.’”
“Ah—no, that’s—”
“It’s true, so why deny it? I actually like the nickname.”
“…Sir?”
“I mean, being the manager of a team that finishes first even when I do nothing—what’s bad about that?”
It was a kind of pride.
“Which is why I hate this. Pulling cheap tricks on some fill-in for Shin Tae-yong.”
The analytics team’s plan for Gong Ji-hoo was simple: don’t throw into the zone. Just miss it by the thinnest possible margin.
It was the same approach Busan Swallows catcher Kim Jae-sang had used against Gong Ji-hoo in his first start.
“Gong Ji-hoo, like I said, swings at almost everything that enters the zone. He’s confident in his swing, sure, but…”
Starve him out. Prod at the impatience buried beneath those absurd numbers.
“Five years. A full five years that kid spent stuck in the minors, getting mocked.”
Modern fans understood that “pitching wins, hitting loses,” high averages, and raw home run totals no longer defined a player’s true value. Even so, fans still preferred the thrill of a clean hit and a sprint around the bases over a free pass.
“Gong Ji-hoo said in an interview that the fans’ reactions scared him. That’s probably why he swings so aggressively.”
No one fretted over fan reaction more than Gong Ji-hoo.
Make him rattle himself. That was the answer the Wolves analytics team had cooked up.
Keep feeding him those razor-edge misses. The impatience he couldn’t hide would eventually make him chase something outside the zone.
Whether the result was a hit or an out didn’t matter. It would mean they had cracked his approach.
And if that crack widened into failure, the trauma he had openly discussed in interviews would come flooding back to swallow him whole.
“I made it sound grand, but it’s basically an intentional walk. We’re the first-place team. We’re supposed to give free passes every at-bat to a guy like that?”
Walking a dangerous hitter to face the next one was the traditional answer when you had no other way to win. Still—
“But they didn’t exactly say to walk him outright, right?”
“That’s the other problem. How many pitchers do you think can actually execute ‘barely miss the zone’ on command?”
“….”
Nine-zone precision control was a fantasy that only existed in comics. No pitcher in the KBO could truly do it. Or rather—
“Jeong-hoo could, maybe?”
“That guy… can he really?”
Dong Sang-guk tilted his head. Even so, he couldn’t hand the job to Do Jeong-hoo. That would be stomping on an ace’s pride.
Oddly enough, Do Jeong-hoo himself might have enjoyed it.
“Anyway, we’ve got a few pitchers who can at least fake the plan, but even they hang pitches. And you’ve already seen what happens then.”
Gong Ji-hoo’s previous at-bat. Three-ball count. The result of a mistake that found the zone:
“Foul!”
Lee Dae-beom’s ball had barely stayed fair. The runner who had broken from first the instant the bat met the ball trudged back.
“Gong Ji-hoo’s form right now is no joke. He punishes every mistake.”
That was Gong Ji-hoo.
“Even if the plan works, we’ve got problems. The Wizards aren’t a one-man Gong Ji-hoo show. Their lineup is honestly tougher than ours. We’re trying it today, but… is this really the right call?”
The suits had decided Gong Ji-hoo was the heart of the Suwon Wizards’ offense. Neutralize him, and the rest of the lineup would fall silent on its own.
The day before.
After listening to the analysis team leader’s long monologue, Dong Sang-guk asked, “That… doesn’t sound much like the scientific baseball you people always talk about.”
The team leader pulled another cigarette from his pack and stuck it between his lips.
“Yeah… well. But…”
There really is no answer.
“This is only based on the last month’s numbers, but…”
Gong Ji-hoo.
“Fastballs? He crushes them. Breaking balls? Off-speed, curve, whatever—he hits them all. As long as they’re in the zone.”
No real weak spots in the zone either.
“Nearly perfect? Or just perfect? That’s the kind of player he is. So what are we supposed to do? Grab whatever slim chance we can find and pray.”
A month was short. Yet given the performance Gong Ji-hoo was putting up, it was also far too long. That ambiguity was giving the analytics team migraines.
“It’s basically a white-flag declaration… but I think the odds are decent.”
He took a long drag.
“The Korean Series is best-of-whatever—you still have to play at least four games. Sooner or later it’ll catch him, right?”
It wasn’t even a real loss. If the guy was going to reach base anyway, giving up one base was better than watching a ball leave the yard.
Another long exhale. Smoke veiled the team leader’s face.
“Maybe we won’t even need this nonsense and he’ll be easy to handle. This is only for the worst-case scenario where Gong Ji-hoo’s current form lasts all the way to the Korean Series.”
The final call is yours, skip.
“That team leader’s a real piece of work, isn’t he? He basically strong-arms us into following their plan and then dumps the decision on me… Huh? What’s that kid doing right now?”
“Yeah… I was thinking the same—wait, who?”
The coach, worn down from listening to Dong Sang-guk’s long complaint, was slow to catch up. He turned toward where the manager was staring and saw—
Gong Ji-hoo is taking a massive lead! He’s acting like he couldn’t care less about the pitcher’s pickoff move!
—Gong Ji-hoo standing far off first base, lead stretched wide.
Hmm.
Maybe I’d gotten a little arrogant lately.
I was putting up big numbers. I’d sent Oh Jin-muk’s and Do Jeong-hoo’s pitches over the fence. Kim Jae-sang had acknowledged me as a rival.
Had my shoulders crept up without me noticing? Because—
The first-place team is treating me like I don’t even exist…
The Wolves were acting as if I weren’t on the field at all.
In my earlier at-bats, watching pitch after pitch just miss, I’d assumed they were trying to make things difficult for me.
Or maybe they were just so scared of Lee Dae-beom that they tensed up the moment the guy batting in front of him stepped in…
That was the only way those barely-off-the-zone pitches made sense. No way they were doing it on purpose. Putting that much effort into handing free bases to a runner was ridiculous.
Is this what they call the umbrella effect?
Another blessing from the Dae-beom umbrella, I guess.
I swallowed the joke and watched the pitcher from my lead.
Right-hander. Even while taking signs and setting, he never once glanced my way.
I’d been treated like air at the plate; now I was being treated like air on the bases too.
I don’t have any stolen-base numbers, sure…
I didn’t like stealing. Success gained a base, but failure was always possible. Getting thrown out and adding an out for the team was the worst feeling.
Still—
My speed wasn’t bad. For my size I was pretty quick. I ranked near the top on the team, I was sure of it.
Outfielders couldn’t be slow. Covering that much ground required at least decent wheels.
There are exceptions, of course.
Those were the guys the team kept around purely for their bats, accepting clumsy defense. In a way, they were the ones the team truly trusted.
I wasn’t that guy. More precisely, I’d almost been that guy and then kicked the chance away myself.
Anyway, thanks to the Wolves pitchers fretting over Lee Dae-beom, I was having another solid day. But watching them ignore me even on the bases—
Huh? I’m getting pissed.
A little heat rising was inevitable.
Of course Lee Dae-beom was worth fretting over. He was sitting on the doorstep of forty home runs.
I remembered him saying, in that ridiculous tone of his, “Genius-nim, please don’t ignore me and teach me a thing or two. How do you hit home runs so well?”
The joking voice had been paired with a desperately serious face.
I stretched my lead even wider, right in the pitcher’s face.
Far enough that anyone would think a pickoff could easily get me. If they still ignored this, maybe my regression perk had given me some “Invisible Something” superpower.
Shuuuuk!
Naturally, I had no such power.
“Safe!”
I beat the throw by a hair, stood up, and brushed the dirt off.
The Suwon Wizards’ signature pickoff chant—mocked by rival fans for using English because the team had no roots—echoed through the stadium.
I liked that chant. It always made me feel like I’d come home.
With the home crowd behind me, I took another big lead.
“Ji-hoo, if you get picked off like that it’s the most embarrassing thing in the world. Get back.”
To the Wolves first baseman who said that, I answered without even looking.
“Senior, I’m doing this because I know I can make it.”
“Ji-hoo… I’m your classmate… We even said hello before the game…”
Did we?
“Sorry.”
Shuuuuuk!
“Safe!”
That one had been genuinely close. If I’d been out, I’d have been mocked for the rest of my life as the guy who got picked off while chatting.
Of course I didn’t shorten the lead.
The pitcher on the mound kept glancing sideways; I was clearly getting under his skin.
Dae-beom, even with me doing this much for you…
If you can’t cash this in, you’ll never hit forty in your life.
And then—
Shuuuuuk!
Three pickoff attempts must have been enough. The pitcher’s throw headed for home plate.
Thwaaaack—!
Lee Dae-beom’s lightning swing.
High.
Impossibly high.
It sailed over the first-base bag where I stood, cleared the backpedaling right fielder, cleared the wall, and vanished outside the stadium.
“Oh…”
Even as the runner on first, I was so stunned I forgot to run. A true no-doubter that left the park entirely.
The home crowd erupted.
“Hey! Gong Ji-hoo, what are you doing! Round the bases!”
The coach’s shout snapped me out of it. I started circling. And Lee Dae-beom—
He flung his bat sky-high, then raised a clenched fist straight toward the heavens.
Anyone watching would have said he looked like the protagonist.
So that’s why the Wolves were so obsessed with that guy.
10–0.
For a clash between first and second place, the result was utterly one-sided.
And then—