Knuckle Curve (3)

Bang Min-soo still couldn't figure out what made Kim Yi-seon tick.

By any measure, the man was profoundly analytical. He rarely opened his mouth, but every time he did, deep analysis came pouring out — and when dealing with anyone, he acted strictly on analysis and cost-benefit. It was the same reason he only corrected people when they butchered his name instead of getting angry. Getting angry earned him nothing.

And in that respect, aside from the fact that Kim Yi-seon was his exact opposite, the man was completely impossible to analyze.

The count ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was 2-1. A count where a pitcher could either nibble for a chase or come in honestly for the strike. But the previous two pitches had both been curves, leaving the count at 1-1.

And their locations had been, first, a chase curve diving off the bottom and outside, then a second curve that drifted a little closer to the middle but still arrived at the bottom of the zone for a strike.

Any ordinary pitcher, having already shown two breaking balls, would throw a fastball here — and if a fastball was coming, it would be up in the zone. If a pitcher stubbornly went curve for a third straight pitch, he'd most likely aim for that same escape route off the outside corner.

Toss in the changeup that was now his third pitch and the options multiplied a bit further — but the conclusion Kim Yi-seon landed on sat very, very far from any conventional logic.

Call it a power curve all you like, with all that velocity; at the end of the day it's still a curve. Throw that pitch anywhere near the top of the strike zone and extra-base hits are practically guaranteed — and that's exactly where he threw it.

For a fastball to follow that kind of trajectory, it would have to be a ball coming in at a batter's eye level. He had thrown what was, to anyone watching, unmistakably a curveball, loud and proud. Granted, it could have been a mistake — but judging by the shameless way he stood there on the mound, he'd thrown it exactly as intended.

This is exactly the problem. He'd been told, clearly, to hold off on using the knuckle curve in real games for now. The coaches, the analytics staff, even his personal instructor were all in agreement: it wasn't polished enough for game action.

Even now the location wobbled unpredictably, and every time a ball drifted back over the middle his heart lurched. That pitch roaring up top — for all anyone knew, it was simply the result of the ball slipping out of his hand.

But he just threw it anyway. No conference on the mound, no pregame meeting of minds. He'd climbed the hill looking pleased with himself, and now he was just lobbing knuckle curves wholesale.

And was there any consistency to his pitch selection? No. He threw it 'just because,' whenever he felt like it. Conventional chase counts, first-pitch chess — he had plainly deleted all of it from his brain. Pitch types spewing out of him like random numbers off a computer.

Bang Min-soo had played baseball until twenty-four, approaching the game mathematically through analysis his entire career. Kim Yi-seon's pitching looked calculated yet reckless, deliberate yet random.

He had tried, again and again, to find a rule inside that chaos — and each time, every intention he'd inferred turned out to be wrong, and how much that had cost him. But today, at last, he felt he could finally admit it.

That guy simply isn't thinking at all. If a knuckleballer can't control a ball's trajectory after release, then that guy over there couldn't control his decisions before he threw the ball.

"Wow, that kid's got some serious nerve. Who walks that in?"

Kim Tae-jin, just frozen on a called strikeout, let out an admiring whistle. The Gwangju Phoenix third baseman was a slugger with real pop, but slow of foot and poor at making contact, which was why he batted fifth. And Yi-seon had thrown that death-wish pitch to a man who was, in essence, an all-or-nothing Empty-Calorie Slugger.

"Min-su, was it? The kid with that catcher? If you're going to catch for a guy like that, you're in for a world of pain. Is he actually a genius or what?"

Kim Tae-jin, despite being the opposing team's backup catcher, remembered a name Yi-seon himself couldn't — even after three months sharing a clubhouse with the man. But the affirmative wouldn't come out of Min-soo's mouth.

It was true that he was hard to catch for. And it was true that he was a genius. But something about certifying that thoughtless bastard as a genius felt like losing.

This was the first time since growing up that Bang Min-soo had acted on an emotional reason rather than a rational cost-benefit analysis.

Wow, the ball is really sticking in my hand today.

In practice, it slipped out of his hand all the time. Maybe half his attempts broke exactly as intended, and only about seventy percent broke even respectably. But come the real thing, over ninety percent were coming out clean.

Could it be that I'm actually a big-game player?

Min-gyeong sunbae, catching for him again today, must have found it impressive too — he hadn't said a word, just kept staring at him. It was a perfect mood, beyond perfect.

Sensing his good mood, the other players began drifting over, sneaky and one by one. Kang Hyun-seok sunbae spoke up as their representative.

"Rookie's got good stuff today. Shame about the bats, though."

"These things happen."

The Seoul Twins did seem to have this problem a little often, but hitting came and went in cycles — there were always days the runs simply didn't come. Riding the batters about it would only make them press. Nothing good came of that.

"Honestly, we could just shut them out today and call it a win."

"A shutout? Whoa, our baby rookie's got some swagger! You hear that, Hae-ryong? Our pitching staff's baby says he's throwing a shutout — what's the position players' squad got?"

"Hmm. Min-gil, how about you take this chance to hit for the cycle?"

"I'll give it my best, sir!"

"Tch, never mind. Sang-goo, you hit one then."

"Hyung, how exactly am I supposed to hit a home run."

"That's the spirit, kiddo! Then at least leg out an inside-the-parker."

"You just love picking on us when the kids aren't around, don't you."

Over on the pitching side, the old long relievers had more or less secured their big-league spots these days, and with the starters gettingbreathers and spot starts mixed in, the mood had loosened. The position players, though — with starters still undecided everywhere except the center line — the whole group looked on edge.

Jo Sang-goo sunbae, the only one with second base locked down, was fielding with total ease, while Park Myeong-gil sunbae, starting at third today, stood stiff as a board with the aura of a fresh recruit.

Yeah, I shouldn't count on much run support today.

And of course, the Gwangju Phoenix had come properly prepared too. They hadn't shuffled the rotation on purpose, but their foreign ace just happened to be starting today.

That two-seamer was genuinely absurd. The last pitch had looked like a generous ball off the outside — and then it bent at the last second and came back in for a strike, generously called. How was a batter supposed to hit that?

Ha Joong-yeon sunbae, struck out at shortstop duty, trudged back to the dugout and flopped onto the bench with a long sigh.

"Hah, that guy. I can't pick him up at all."

"You can't pick up anybody. If you had good timing, would you be hitting two-fifty?"

"You're only ten points higher than me, hyung."

"Hey, the KBO league average is two-sixty. You're below average."

"I play shortstop, hyung."

The keystone duo squabbled away, but they were, in fact, good hitters. A shortstop and second baseman hitting that well more than pulled their weight even with modest power — and their defense had been in peak form lately, too.

The Seoul Twins fans hadn't been getting ahead of themselves when they declared this year is different. The hardest part — the center-line rebuild — had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more or less succeeded. Solid defense, quality bats up the middle, plus a center fielder? That's a reason to make noise.

The problem was that the rest of the lineup was sitting at exactly that same level. Park Myeong-gil sunbae, so confident a moment ago, at least had raw power, making direct comparisons difficult — but his average was lower than Joong-yeon sunbae's, the shortstop's.

And Min-gu sunbae, stepping to the plate now, was in flatly dismal shape. Sure, he was a catcher with limited at-bats, so the average was temporary — but what kind of number was .180?

Nothing for it. Pulling out wins even in games like this was the ace's job. His pitch count had plenty of room today; he'd just slam the door with a complete shutout.

Yi-seon, half in earnest and half in jest, raised his voice in support.

"Min-seol sunbae! Even if you cause four outs today, it's fine! Swing free and easy!"

Walking to the plate, Bang Min-soo was thinking. Tucker Pattinson. A textbook sinkerballer whose velocity had eroded, forcing him out of America and over to Korea.

Stateside, lacking the stuff to blow hitters away, he'd built his game around ground-ball pitching. But in Korea — whether thanks to the Gwangju Phoenix organization or his own judgment — he had transformed into an aggressive power pitcher.

His primary weapons were a heavily breaking two-seamer and a slider with sharp lateral movement. He skipped the four-seamer entirely, mixed in a splitter that dropped off short, and occasionally threw a curveball. In other words, a pitcher who preferred to carve hitters up left and right — and against this type, surrendering the inner half made winning the battle all but impossible—

"Min-seol sunbae! Even if you cause four outs today, it's fine! Swing free and easy!"

He'd been running calculations in his head, which is why Kim Yi-seon's voice came through so clearly. Even in a normal ballpark, shouts from the dugout carry well — but with crowd chanting banned, the words rang out practically through a megaphone.

The opposing dugout had probably heard it. The crowd too.

Slightly irritating, but fine. Reacting to every little thing earned him nothing.

"That's Kim Yi-seon, right there, yeah?"

As he stepped in, the Phoenix catcher, Bae Gyeong-jung sunbae, struck up conversation. Not a national-team level backstop, but a good one — a longtime starter who had proven his quality across the league.

"Yes, that's him."

So keeping up a measure of polite small talk was sound judgment, too. On this cramped little patch of land called Korea, maintaining reasonable exchange and cordiality with players from other teams mattered.

"You two must be close? I heard from Yeon-jun that the kid's shyer than he looks."

Bae Gyeong-jung said it with a fond smile. The face of a man thinking, ah, I was like that once too.

"He is not."

The words shot out reflexively, before he knew it. There was no need for this — he could have let it slide — and yet he'd spasmodically denied it.

An irrational reaction. Answering like this earned him nothing. If anything, snapping back — however slightly — at a grand elder of the industry was not the way to leave a good impression.

Wary, he glanced over at Bae Gyeong-jung; the man just went "oh, is that so?" with a shrug and let it go. At last reassured, Bang Min-soo settled into his stance.

It was always like this, whenever Kim Yi-seon got tangled up in things. His rational judgment, his ironclad cost-benefit math, began drifting out of reach.

Hadn't he felt an irrational urge to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slug him today alone, watching Kim Yi-seon shake his head at every fastball and changeup sign and demand the curve?

While these useless thoughts ran their course, Tucker finished setting up. He rotated his upper body hard, as if to exploit that signature low arm slot, and the ball left his fingertips. A textbook, fluid delivery.

Tucker was a sinkerballer who replaced his four-seamer with the sinker — so laying off the first pitch would be the smart play in this battle.

"..."

And yet — funny thing — that textbook, fluid delivery, similar but not quite identical to something — why did it make him think of Kim Yi-seon?

Just a feeling. Making rational judgments didn't mean he was devoid of intuition.

"..."

CRACK—!!!

"Kang Min-hyuk, you absolute lunatic. Is this even human?"

He wasn't an ordinary brand of crazy either. Lacking a single pitch he trusted to throw at the zone with confidence, so his grand solution was to run speed control on every single pitch — where does a person even conceive of that? And on top of that, no balance problems, command intact, all of it?

But Kang Min-hyuk looked back at me as if I were the one wronging him.

"And yet you, of all people, throw a 140 km/h power curve. Had I been capable of such a pitch, I would never have resorted to such complicated trickery."

It's not trickery, you jackass. It's freak talent.

Truly absurd. It boggled the mind that this bastard existed at all, and equally boggling that he insisted I was the crazier one.

I couldn't bring myself to ask Kang Hyun-seok sunbae — poor man was in a mood as the only losing pitcher of the series (he'd logged a bona fide quality start, only for the bats to commit dereliction of duty yet again) — so I took my question to Ji Ha-seob sunbae instead.

"Ha-seob sunbae, honestly, aren't you more amazed by this bastard? I'm telling you, we need to dissect this alien."

Honestly. A 100-mph four-seamer or a 140 km/h power curve — fine, you see those eventually if you make it to the majors. But a lunatic who commands six quadrants of the zone from a submarine angle while adding and subtracting 15 km/h off his fastball? There's exactly one of those in the entire history of baseball, and it's that bastard.

When I put the question to him in exactly that spirit, sunbae answered with the serene, compassionate smile of a Buddha.

"Kang Min-hyuk and you are all aliens, so please, kindly get off our planet."

Compassionate smile notwithstanding, the content was anything but.