The Fundamentals of Having No Fundamentals (3)
The Gwangju Phoenix. Last year's KBO champions, and a powerhouse still defending first place in the Southern Division this season.
Before the season began, there were whispers that holding onto first place wouldn't be easy — the departure of their homegrown ace Park Dong-min to injury, free agent losses, a foreign player replacement. But the team was performing so well that all those worries had faded into nothing.
The heart of the Phoenix's strength was their lineup. Boasting the best run production in the KBO, their bats had a habit of erupting in spectacular fashion whenever they caught fire — and that firepower was exactly how they'd managed their current run.
And a lineup like that doesn't flinch at anyone. Even a Cy Young-caliber pitcher gives up home runs eventually, so what's the point of cowering in advance?
"That Kim Yi-seon kid, sure, he's scary. But it's not like this is our first time facing him, is it?"
"Hyung, you went hitless last time and you're still talking big."
All the more so when it's a pitcher they've already squared off against several times.
Teams from other divisions play each other, at most, in two series a year — but teams in the same division meet for eight. Counting from this point in the season, well past the halfway turn, the Seoul Twins and the Gwangju Phoenix had already played five series, and this was their sixth showdown.
Yi-seon had started against them about twice in that stretch, making this his third meeting. The Phoenix's analytical staff was raising a collective howl that they couldn't analyze Kim Yi-seon at all — but the hitters were singing a very different tune.
"Honestly, I've got a feel for him now. The kid's got nerves of steel for a rookie, sure, but there's a pattern in there if you look."
"Hyung, seriously, drop the act."
Hitters don't live by numbers or video — they live by a feel built from seeing things with their own eyes. If they said this out loud, the analytics staff would flip the table and rant that feel is a supplementary data point, never something to be trusted on its own. But eh, whatever.
The Phoenix's core hitters were confident. Sure, they'd taken a slightly painful pair of scorecards from the last series — six scoreless innings, then seven innings, one run — but they liked their chances this time.
With that thought, they cranked up the pitching machine's speed.
Having the feel was one thing. They still had to time it.
In the end, I gained absolutely nothing, and game day arrived just like that.
Min-soo hyung had told me to just go out and pitch like always, but trusting that and actually sitting still were two very different things. I was too restless for that.
So I kept uploading videos as originally planned, and I even rehearsed — if I really did post the review video according to Min-soo hyung's plan, what lines could I deliver so they'd sound suitably unhinged? I ran through a few drafts.
"Oh, so that's the kind of judgment you were making. I thought there was nothing going on in that head of yours, but you're quietly sharp, huh? Well, you do work hard at baseball."
"It sounds weird, you say? Hm... to me it honestly sounds pretty strategic?"
"Yi-seon-ah. Those lines were meant to sound strange... Maybe I'm wearing rose-colored glasses, but all I hear is a guy pitching with confidence."
Somehow, everyone I read my carefully crafted lines to reacted nothing like I'd intended. I wondered if it was because they were all my girls, so I asked other people too — teammates who actually knew baseball — and got things like, "Isn't that just a normal pitcher?"
No, seriously? You're nodding along to stuff like he keeps throwing the same pitch out of wounded pride, daring you to hit it, or he never throws the same pitch twice in a row? Jinxes and emotionally-driven pitch sequencing aren't rational in the slightest!
The reactions from everyone around me — whether they knew baseball or not — were basically the same, so I had a sinking premonition that even in the review video, my deliberately unhinged nonsense would get nothing but charitable readings from the fans and my personal fandom.
Am I really going to be slandered as a womanizer in the future too? Is Haet-nim-i going to grow up and ask her dad, "Be honest with me. Do I have an uncle I don't know about?"
I was a little depressed. Why does nobody ever listen to me?
"Get ready. We're heading out."
Min-soo hyung's voice cut through my brooding. I'd been loosening up my shoulders in the ready room, spacing out, and he'd apparently come to fetch me personally.
I mixed a dash of complaint with my grievances about his plan and my general anxiety, and got out one line.
"Hyung, do you really think that'll work?"
"No idea whether the rumor will get buried. But one thing's for certain — everyone's going to know you're a weirdo."
He didn't spare my complaints so much as a glance, just declared it flat and hard.
There wasn't a shred of comfort mixed into what he actually said. The man is barely human. Shouldn't a dedicated catcher, of all people, be able to steady a pitcher when he wobbles? This cold-hearted bastard.
Watching him stride off toward home plate without so much as a backward glance made me a little mischievous.
That's right — Min-soo hyung did guarantee it, didn't he. Pitch like always, and explain exactly what I was thinking.
Fine. Then I'd empty my head and act like always. In other words, I'd do whatever my heart told me to do.
"Play ball!"
The Phoenix's leadoff hitter today, Seo Yo-han, stepped into the box with his bat held light and easy.
He hadn't originally been on the first-team roster — he'd only settled into a spot this year, filling the hole left when core players departed.
He'd mostly batted in the bottom of the order, but today, under the banner of giving him a chance, his spot in the lineup had been bumped all the way up to first.
The Gwangju Phoenix were defending first place, yes, but they weren't the overwhelming force they'd been last year — every single game mattered to them. And the Seoul Twins, third in the division but only a handful of wins back, were the last team they could afford to lose to.
To hand him the leadoff spot in the very first game of such a crucial series — this was no ordinary opportunity. It was the manager's final exam, a test of whether he could grow into one of this team's core hitters.
He steadied his pounding heart and stepped into the box.
"...Is something wrong with that guy today?"
"No."
But what he found waiting for him was a Kim Yi-seon in a deeply unsettling state.
He already knew that strong eye contact with hitters was part of Yi-seon's routine. But today it went beyond a staredown — his eyes were brimming with irritation. It was the look of a little cousin sulking because the board game wasn't going his way.
It rattled Seo Yo-han enough that he faltered for a moment mid-routine. He was so bothered by it that he asked the catcher in an awkward, flustered voice what was going on, but got nothing back but a curt answer.
What could have put him in a bad mood? I've got no personal history with the guy.
He glanced at the catcher again — equally unbothered over there. Bang Min-soo didn't have a long enough career for his personality to be well known, but one thing was clear: that glare was not friendly.
Fine. Whatever. The guy probably had his own reasons. But under that absurdly intense stare, the tension in his shoulders had dissolved before he knew it.
If a rookie fresh out of high school got to play however he pleased, there was no way a pro with real service time was going to do worse.
He set his stance. The nerves were gone, but his guard was up. Whatever the reason, one fact was certain: the opposing pitcher was in a foul temper. The odds of unusually aggressive pitching were high.
Even now, the sign exchange with the catcher was a mess of disagreement — Yi-seon's brow furrowed hard, his head shaking back and forth in a firm no. What was happening couldn't have been clearer.
No need to guess: he'd challenge him head-on. Getting bullied here could mean a called first-pitch strike and a lightning-fast donation of an out. But if he couldn't swing at a pitch he was sure was coming through his zone, the disadvantage was the hitter's.
He gripped the bat hard. His preparation for attacking the first pitch was complete.
And in that moment, what the analytics staff had told him about Kim Yi-seon in the pregame meeting floated up from memory.
"—Kim Yi-seon is a pitcher who enjoys attacking the zone and uses the upper half aggressively. Because umpires tend not to call inside pitches at the top of the zone, his pitches generally drift toward the middle. Even when targeting other quadrants, his horizontal command is shaky — a consistent trait of his—"
Right. Kim Yi-seon had solid command of the vertical split, up and down. But the upper inside zone — close to a hitter's head — was an area umpires called strictly to begin with, and his own command wavered left and right, so his pitches crowded the middle.
Pitches coming to the center, movement mostly vertical? A full swing, meeting power with power, was the right call.
The instant the thought finished, Yi-seon set and delivered.
The ball ripped off his fingertips at a ferocious velocity, and Seo Yo-han swung through it with everything he had, as if to cleave it in two.
"Striiike!"
161 km/h
"First pitch, swinging strike up in the zone!"
"Kim Yi-seon does not hold back today, folks. He loves going straight at you, chest to chest."
"The count is 0-1."
Just as I thought. It played out exactly as expected.
The ball itself had been so fast, and it stayed up so much longer than he'd anticipated, that he'd swung under it — but it had been in exactly the zone Seo Yo-han had predicted.
Right, the analysts said the guy was patternless, said there was no reading what he'd throw next. But he was human too. Watch him with your own two eyes, read that energy long enough, and thoughts start to become visible.
Confidence swelled. Seo Yo-han had always been praised for his sharp eye. Now that he was certain he'd read his opponent's intent, the embarrassment of the whiff and the terror of that unhittable stuff vanished entirely.
All that remained was the question: what comes next?
He watched. Yi-seon's mood was still sour. Even the fingers fidgeting with the rosin bag carried an edge of irritation.
But this time, the sign exchange with the catcher ended in a heartbeat. Yi-seon went straight into his delivery.
The signs wrapped up that fast — normally, you'd read that as a battery in perfect sync.
But Seo Yo-han, who was communicating and breathing in real time with Kim Yi-seon, thought otherwise. That behavior right there — no matter how he looked at it, Yi-seon was planning to ignore the sign and throw whatever he wanted.
You could call that a stretch, but it was well known that Yi-seon actually did such things. A normal pitcher would never dream of it — before any question of baseball common sense, he'd have to face his catcher's fury. Yi-seon was different.
Was there any guarantee the lunatic wouldn't pull that stunt again today?
If he blew off the sign again, the outcome was obvious. A head-on power struggle that trampled convention. He'd show off that overwhelming stuff to the hitter one more time.
Then wipe the breaking ball from his mind. Almost certainly a fastball — and in the same spot.
The moment the chain of reasoning completed, Yi-seon threw, and Seo Yo-han swung.
"Striiike!"
159 km/h
"Second pitch, middle of the zone, swinging strike."
"Ah, that's fast. Kim Yi-seon's pitches are faster than the numbers on the gun. See how Seo Yo-han's bat keeps getting late? Even on the slow-motion replay, you can read the trajectory, but it won't be easy."
Putting the regret behind him, Seo Yo-han fought on through a difficult at-bat. The count: 0-2.
So close. Genuinely so close.
Part of it was that he'd consciously adjusted his swing upward after that first high fastball. Part of it was that Yi-seon's pitch came flying boldly into the middle — whether from shaky command or by design — and he'd whiffed all the way through it.
But fundamentally, he'd read the pitch right. Without a doubt.
His brain was now running, to some degree, in sync with Kim Yi-seon's. He'd glimpsed the man's way of thinking, and the corresponding pitch had become visible.
Backed into 0-2, Seo Yo-han felt no fear at all. Even without checking Yi-seon's demeanor, the next pitch arrived in his gut by pure instinct.
Another fastball. With Yi-seon's aggression, it was a lock.
Look at that — as if to prove him right, the catcher and Yi-seon stretched into a long, winding sign exchange. And Yi-seon's hard, unyielding eyes were broadcasting his will: I'm not giving in this time.
Whose opinion would win was a very simple question.
He waited. Two whiffs in, and his timing — just barely — had come into focus. If it was another fastball, he could absolutely jump on it.
Yi-seon's face twisted, and he threw. A fastball up top. No reason to hesitate.
"Striiike! You're out!!!"
138 km/h
"...Huh?"
"The ball dives — strike three! Strikeout! Struck out looking on three pitches!"
"A completely unexpected curveball. Kim Yi-seon is so aggressive that even with two strikes he often goes for the kill, so hitters simply can't help reacting like that."
"With a sharp breaking ball, he retires the leadoff hitter."
No. No, no, no.
You had a face full of pure irritation just now. I don't know what was eating you, but you were clearly planning to take your frustration out with fastballs only — none of that half-hearted breaking ball stuff.
Why was it a curveball?
"Min-soo hyung, that pitch wasn't bad today, but why do you keep telling me to throw fastballs? First pitch, there was a perfect window for a changeup."
"Because."
"Because? That's not like you at all, hyung. Did you eat something weird this morning?"
"And why were you thinking about throwing a changeup? For the record — small sample size, admittedly — Seo Yo-han hits same-handed changeups at a clip in the mid-.300s. His numbers against sinkers are in the early .300s too."
"Really? He rakes, huh. But that's not my changeup he'd be hitting. See, this morning I went to the bathroom, and the faucet that's usually broken and drifts a little to the left was running dead straight today? That was obviously changeup weather, anyone could see it."
"...What does that possibly have to do with anything."
"Obviously it matters. The impression settles into my subconscious, so today my changeup's going to bite harder and drop sharper, obviously. Wow, it's rare for something to stick in my memory this vividly."
"..."
"Anyway, I threw by the book for the first two pitches since you kept fussing, but from now on you take my input too. That curveball on pitch three — how good was that? Dropped like a waterfall."
"Haah..."
The Phoenix hitters had their confidence. Their leadoff man Seo Yo-han, retired on strikes, still believed he'd read Yi-seon's intent twice. And the hitters after him kept managing to guess the direction of his pitches, once or twice an at-bat.
Kim Yi-seon wasn't invincible. The guy gave up hits like anyone else — occasionally even home runs. If the heart of the defending champion Gwangju Phoenix's lineup could just decode his psychological patterns, a big inning was no pipe dream.
And so, inning after inning, their psychological profiling continued.
2nd inning
"Yo-han-ah. You're saying the kid looked off today?"
"Yes. His face was absolutely sulking when the first inning started, I'm telling you. And his sign exchanges with the personal catcher kept dragging on — something's going on between those two."
"Then we can assume there'll be almost no signs called from the catcher himself?"
"Right. The dugout might call a few, but honestly? That kid doesn't strike me as the type to listen even if they did."
"Okay. Got it."
3rd inning
"Hey, I see it now. That kid's a sly little fox."
"Sly, you say?"
"Yeah. Just like Yo-han said, he doesn't look happy — but the more I watch, the more it feels put on. He barely shows any anger at power hitters like me. He saves it for contact guys like Yo-han."
"Whoa, so he was acting the whole time?"
"He is. A cunning bastard. And I've got his pitching repertoire figured out too — textbook stuff, but he tries to muscle down contact hitters and soothe the home run threats with junk pitches. You saw it, right? One curveball and three changeups to me alone?"
"His acting skills are incredible."
4th inning
"Tch... something's off. Why is it fastballs three times in a row again?"
"He's just firing fast-sink-fast-sink at me, back to back."
5th inning
"Got it. The kid's command is shaky left-right today. He keeps splitting everything into extreme up-and-down segments — his horizontal command must be even worse than usual."
6th inning
"That's it. Pride's a stubborn thing. We kept taking the horizontal pitches out of play, so now he's overcorrecting and leaning hard on them again."
7th inning
"I've got him! Now I really do!"
"Hyung... should we maybe stop?"
"No, I'm telling you, I've cracked it. I faced him when he started against us last time too, and his game management feels about the same. Look, even right now—"
"Ha..."
To be fair, the Phoenix hitters' psychological analysis had been remarkably sharp. They'd uncovered fresh interpretations that video study and statistical analysis alone never could have produced.
And their research did bear a kind of fruit — roughly the difference in odds between a man buying a lottery ticket off a machine and a man who has conducted a rigorous study of the secret messages hidden inside lottery numbers.
Measured against the blazing intensity of their analysis, the results were just a little disappointing.