The Seoul Series (4)

What makes for good pitching?

The simple answer would be throwing something so fast or with so much movement that the batter simply can't hit it, even knowing what's coming.

But there's a fact baseball fans keep forgetting: the hitters a pitcher faces are professionals among professionals — men who eat, sleep, and breathe baseball for a living. If a pitch arrives exactly where the hitter predicted, "knowing and still not hitting it" is almost never a thing that happens.

In the majors, even a 100-mph fastball gets launched for a home run if it flies in on a telegraphed course, and the KBO isn't far behind — there are plenty of hitters who can handle pitches up to the mid-90s.

In the end, it comes down to what Warren Spahn, the greatest left-handed pitcher of all time, once said: hitting is timing, and pitching is upsetting timing.

The key is making sure the batter doesn't know what my pitch is.

"Stee-rike! Out!!!"

"A curve that really runs away off the outside corner! Called strike three on a whiff! Once again, Kim Yi-seon racks up the out!"

"That's a very seasoned pitch sequence. Today he's leaning more heavily on breaking balls than his four-seamer, you see? He's making excellent use of the full width of the strike zone."

"Both teams retire the side in order from the very first inning — this is a razor-tight pitching duel."

So how do you do it? The answer is simple. Force the hitter into a two-choice question.

Some pitchers stretch it into three or even four options, but most build their approach around conditioning the batter to prepare for two courses. Pile on too many choices and the opponent stops swinging the bat freely, making whiffs and weak contact hard to come by — and if a middle option ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠creeps in, a skilled contact hitter can cover several courses at once. Not exactly efficient.

By that logic, the original me had built my repertoire around a vertical two-choice question: a strong four-seamer up, with a circle changeup diving down to follow it. And since recently adding the knuckle curve, I'd been leaning on the even sharper vertical contrast between my four-seamer and that curve.

The problem, of course, is that if you hammer away at a single pattern, you're going to get read. That much was inevitable.

So then — if you could swap out your core two-choice repertoire every game, or even every at-bat, wouldn't that be all the better? Just yesterday, Paulo had made the whole game look easy by layering a spin-axis disguise on top of his own easy question: four-seamer or hybrid fastball.

Which meant trying out the new pattern I'd built in this very game was just common sense.

"...Yi-seon. You're sure you understood the signs correctly?"

Baek Joo-seon approached me with a smile that sat a little stiff around the edges. I could see why he'd ask, so I answered honestly.

"Yes, I understood them fine. It was intentional."

"Intentional?"

The look on his face said, what kind of nonsense is that? But there was a perfectly rational reason behind it.

"Everything in my repertoire so far has worked the vertical plane. But I've been noticing more hitters starting to approach me with upper-cut swings hunting extra-base hits, so I figured this was the moment to show them a pitch plan that works the horizontal width of the zone."

My circle changeup now carried more sweeping, lateral movement than pure drop. Pair that with a curve whose movement is far more vertical but still breaks in sideways to some degree, and you have an ideal combination for playing both corners of the plate.

It was, in fact, something the video analysis team had told me to consider trying.

"...So? Then why didn't you bring any of this up at yesterday's meeting...? And you could have at least relayed the signs properly..."

Granted, it would be genuinely brutal for a catcher — having pitches fly in with no signs at all, suddenly, completely divorced from the dugout's instructions. If he weren't Baek Joo-seon, a catcher with a reputation as a defensive wizard, he might not have been able to handle it at all.

But this, too, had a very rational justification.

"Sunbae. Have you ever read The Art of War?"

"Doesn't it say something about deceiving the enemy..."

"Exactly. And to deceive the enemy, shouldn't you deceive your own side first?"

If even our own catcher didn't know, how could the opposing hitter pick up so much as a whisper of a tell? Against a pitch designed so that even knowing isn't enough to hit it, coming in a way no one could imagine — you just strike out, plain and simple.

Perhaps impressed by my answer, Baek Joo-seon went quiet for a moment — then, instead of replying in words, answered with a faint, serene smile.

This must be what Buddhism calls the lotus smile, then.

Having confirmed the bond between battery mates, I headed in to prepare for the next inning.

"Wow. That guy is a complete lunatic."

Bottom of the fourth. That was the first thing out of Jeong Min-byeong's mouth as he trudged back to the dugout, freshly struck out in what was — just like yesterday — a deadlocked pitching duel.

"Pitchers' duel" is just about the least fitting word in the Seoul Dragons' vocabulary, especially at their home park in Seodaemun, yet here they were, two days straight, staring at exactly that.

Part of it was certainly the Twins' hitters slumping, but the bigger reason was the unhinged performance from the opposing pitchers. Today, the culprit was Kim Yi-seon.

"When he looked at Baek Joo-seon sunbae before that first at-bat, I swear it seemed like he hadn't even planned this."

"You believe that? When catchers are on the field, everything except breathing is a lie."

No, actually. If that had been acting, Baek Joo-seon should have gone into theater instead of catching. Whatever else it was, his face had looked genuinely blindsided.

"What the hell is that kid, some kind of monster? Look, if you can throw 160 on your fastball, aren't you supposed to take it easy on everything else? What are the rest of the hitters in this league supposed to do for a living?"

In my own opinion, he could throw nothing but 160-mph fastballs and most hitters still wouldn't touch them. I'd bet good money he could coast to 150 innings and an ERA in the low threes doing exactly that.

But that sinister creature out there kept evolving like his sacred mission was to vaporize every hitter in existence, without a shred of professional courtesy.

As if a sinker-that-looked-like-a-changeup at KBO power-velocity levels wasn't enough, he'd rolled out a deranged knuckle curve whose break angle was so sharp you'd mistake it for a splitter — with the velocity to match. And now today, on top of everything, a pitch sequence working the inside and outside corners that he'd barely shown before.

I was still marveling at all this when Shin Jeong-seop, who'd been listening in silence beside me, finally spoke up.

"Nah. This is a rookie running wild."

"Running wild?"

Shin Jeong-seop's eyes gleamed like a man who'd just reached enlightenment.

"Yeah. I wasn't sure at first glance, but after watching your at-bat a second time, I'm certain."

And then he began laying out his observations, one by one.

"Look at the curve. He's got a certain amount of control over the drop, but the horizontal break is still escaping him. The moment you struck out, it caught the lower outside corner beautifully — but you can also find cases where it breaks way off the plate entirely, or drifts toward the middle-bottom instead."

Fair point, honestly. Now that I thought about it, his curve control did still look rough. The curveball is one of the hardest pitches in baseball to locate, so it was a reasonable inference.

"And the changeup — his command left-right isn't great either. Sometimes it clusters near the middle, sometimes it runs so far in on the hands it gets borderline."

Given the nature of the changeup as a pitch, that one seemed unlikely to be intentional. A changeup is, fundamentally, a deception pitch. Even if Kim Yi-seon uses his like a second fastball, deliberately spotting it on an obvious course still carries risk.

"So the conclusion is simple. He's posturing like he owns the mound, but inside, the cramped Seodaemun park has him rattled, and he's forcing a reckless style change under the pressure."

The heart of the Seoul Dragons' lineup swings up hard, built to yank home runs out of any park. Against upper-cut hitters, an up-and-down, split-the-zone approach is dangerous — one mistake and it leaves the yard.

So instead, like today: keep the four-seamer to a minimum, mostly up in the zone, and lean on the curve and changeup to rattle hitters side to side. The more you shake a hitter horizontally, the more their timing erodes, and the farther they drift from the baseball.

"Which means the counter is obvious too. What happens when a guy forces a style change he hasn't mastered, while the pressure keeps piling on?"

It wasn't exactly a fair-and-square method... but this was everyday business in the pros.

Shin Jeong-seop paid extra attention to his guards and padding as he prepared for his next at-bat.

Only the bottom of the fourth, and the game had the shape of a tense pitchers' duel. Shin Jeong-seop deliberately took his time stepping into the batter's box.

Baek Joo-seon, who on any normal day would have exchanged pleasantries, wore an uncharacteristically haggard expression. Whether it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was genuine or theater didn't really matter — though watching that face, one could almost believe Kim Yi-seon really was freelancing out there.

But it didn't matter. Whatever the true author of those pitches was, Shin Jeong-seop's plan worked either way. If anything, a pitcher stubbornly forcing his own agenda only made it more effective.

"..."

First, he crowded the plate as far as he could go. Then he went beyond merely standing close — he exaggerated it, thrusting his leg out farther than usual as he set his stance.

"...Hmph."

"..."

Baek Joo-seon, weary-faced moments ago, now stared daggers at him, expression hard. The umpire, caught in the middle, glanced around awkwardly, visibly unsure how to rule on this.

Shin Jeong-seop ignored all of it. His position was a gray zone he'd mapped out over a long career — legally clean, ethically borderline, tiptoeing right along the edge of both.

This was the counter to Kim Yi-seon's new pitch repertoire.

So the kid brings a side-to-side split pattern with shaky horizontal command? Then there's only one orthodox answer a hitter has: get even closer to the strike zone.

Well — if the pitcher's poor control ended up plunking the batter, he might get angry enough to storm the mound and demand an explanation. But honestly, that was the plan all along, wasn't it?

Even without fans in the stands, this was a rivalry series. The weight of it was different.

For a rookie to throw at a batter who'd crowded the plate, accepting the consequences? Most players simply couldn't do it, period.

Unless, of course, the kid had the heart of a lion and could gut it out. Kim Yi-seon did look like that type. In that case — crowd him as tight as possible and force the bench-clearing. He didn't even need to get hit; pitches coming close enough to the body would do fine. A few heated protests later, once the grievances stacked up, you charge. Conveniently, the Twins were thin on veteran players. There was Kang Hyun-seok sunbae, the old guard's last word, but wasn't he getting on in years by now?

"...Jeong-seop. Enough. Knock it off."

"A hitter's gotta do what a hitter's gotta do."

Someone like Baek Joo-seon, bristling over there, might call it dirty. But this was strategy — the strategy of the sport called baseball. In soccer, too, when you foul the man on a counterattack to stop the play and settle for a yellow card, they call it a clever foul, don't they?

At this display, Kim Yi-seon's eyes met his — and the kid's face froze harder than any expression he'd shown all day.

To be fair, the worst he'd ever dealt with was high schoolers his own age. He'd never faced a veteran from another team, a man deep into a real professional career — which was probably why his reaction was so violent. Exactly the picture Shin Jeong-seop had wanted.

Sure enough, the sign exchange with the catcher started dragging on. In a situation like this, a young pitcher with little experience would start to panic.

The signs finally seemed to sync, and Kim Yi-seon settled into his set position.

His arm came forward as smoothly as flowing water. Shin Jeong-seop answered in kind, kicking his leg up in an exaggerated high lift — high enough to block the catcher's eyes and mitt from view.

For an instant, he caught a glimpse of Kim Yi-seon's scowl. Excellent. In this situation, the kid had exactly two options: stubbornly cling to the new pattern even as pitches leaked out of the zone and blow the game, or meekly retreat to his old approach.

But looking into those eyes, there was no way in hell he'd go back to basics. No — he'd probably stab one inside, as if to insist the new plan was alive and well.

Braced for a possible beanball, Shin Jeong-seop finished his preparation to turn on an inside pitch.

"...!"

Had he underestimated a young hothead's blood? Because Kim Yi-seon rejected both options.

You absolute maniac. Anyone with eyes can see that ball's trajectory is a straight line to my head.

He'd figured the kid for a partial lunatic, but wasn't this a psycho who'd thrown away even basic professional solidarity? The flight of the ball looked like a fastball, too.

One thing was certain: try to ride it out halfway and it would hit him. No matter how important the game, taking that kid's fastball off the skull was a matter of life and death.

Shin Jeong-seop made his judgment in that sliver of a second and ducked his head fast. He'd fling the bat and charge the mound, trigger the bench-clearing right then and there—

"Stee-rike!"

"Kim Yi-seon's first pitch — inside! Called strike right on the hands!"

"What did we just witness? I flinched myself — it looked dead-on for Shin Jeong-seop's head. And he panicked so badly he actually threw his bat, and then the ball just... gets sucked into the strike zone."

"What a fearless challenge pitch!"

Before he could even follow through on anything, the umpire's call left him staring blankly into space.

"Get your head back in it. Don't go picking fights with a kid over nothing."

And there was that one cold remark from Baek Joo-seon sunbae, so unlike his usual gentlemanly self.

Still dazed, Shin Jeong-seop heard himself ask a stupid question before he could stop.

"Wait — was that pitch your idea, sunbae?"

"Why? So you can do what about it?"

Right. There was no reason to tell him, and what could he even do with the answer? If the veteran had called it, would he chew out his senior? And if the kid had done it on his own, would he rage at some freshman nobody? Either way, it was a strike, wasn't it?

He had set out to kill the kid's spirit — and instead got stamped flat in the opening exchange.

It would've been easier if the pitcher were someone like his own teammate Kang Min-hyuk, with that godlike command — a guy who'd put every pitch on a corner for a strike, where you could at least trust the location and attack.

If that curve had broken even a touch less horizontally — like one he'd thrown earlier — a ball north of 140 km/h was headed for his shoulder if not his skull.

How was anyone supposed to hit like this? Genuinely maddening.

"Uh... Yi-seon? If you wanted to brush a guy back off the plate, wouldn't a circle changeup have been plenty? Why the curve, of all things?"

In the batter's-box standoff, Baek Joo-seon had been unusually icy — a catcher had to protect his teammate and junior, after all. But now that the starting pitcher had finished the inning and come back, he asked his question with the utmost courtesy and gentleness of a true gentleman.

Truthfully, if this had been the old days, a senior would have bellowed at him or cursed him up and down for what happened today. But a born gentleman who struggled to say a harsh word to anyone could do no more than ask his junior, softly.

It wasn't that everything Kim Yi-seon did was wrong. In that previous at-bat against Shin Jeong-seop, sending some kind of message had clearly been necessary.

Gentleman or not, Baek Joo-seon was still a professional ballplayer and a catcher — he had no intention of letting an opposing hitter crowd the plate to a degree that bordered on unsportsmanlike.

So he'd expected an honest brush-back pitch at the middle of the torso, like the inside circle changeups he'd shown so often today. His first sign had asked for exactly that.

But there had been only one thing Kim Yi-seon firmly demanded instead.

'Curve. Inside. Up in the zone.'

How on earth was a kid who'd learned the knuckle curve mere weeks ago, whose command of it still wobbled, supposed to throw a curve up-and-in? Let the horizontal or vertical break slip even slightly and it was landing directly on a head or a shoulder — a lethal zone.

If it were one of those gentler 120-km/h curves like other pitchers throw, maybe he could understand. But this kid's curve traveled as hard as a decent slow fastball — what was going through his head that he could demand that so confidently?

Yet Kim Yi-seon, betraying every one of those expectations, answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, if you're going to fool somebody, it has to look convincing enough."

An inside circle changeup curves back onto the plate at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last moment, so it lacks the fear factor for a brush-back — a completely unhinged explanation. Something about how a pitch that looks like it's going to hit you before breaking away just doesn't compare?

Hearing that answer, Baek Joo-seon found himself able to smile, bright and easy. Kim Yi-seon, apparently liking that expression, smiled along with him.

And then Baek Joo-seon thought:

I have to tell the manager — from now on, Min-soo catches Kim Yi-seon. I cannot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠receive this kid anymore. Not for anything.