Head-On Clash (2)

Needless to say, Kim Yi-seon was once again in the grip of his signature affliction.

Namely, the disease of believing the opponent must have prepared something!

"Park Dong-min sunbae taking the mound was an unexpected move, I'll give you that. But is that really everything?"

"Here we go again."

What kind of outlandish scheme had they cooked up this time? They wouldn't have simply shown up with the same style they'd used all regular season. That's not how the postseason works. And since this world was built on the foundations of a manga, there was bound to be a little theatrical flair in the mix.

But Kang Min-hyuk, apparently incapable of grasping my perfectly rational deliberation, just kept sighing.

"They've already faced each other twenty-four times in the regular season. There's no way they're rolling out a brand-new strategy at this point."

It wasn't an entirely wrong way to look at it, but from where I stood, it missed the mark. Even setting aside the whole this-world-is-a-manga business, didn't it strike anyone as suspicious that a pitcher fresh off the injured list was suddenly starting?

And frankly, the moment the speaker turned out to be Kang Min-hyuk, the statement was automatically wrong. If Kang Min-hyuk believes something, it's usually not true.

Unlike the dim-witted Kang Min-hyuk, Minsu hyung — whose brain actually functioned — agreed with me quite enthusiastically.

"Let's say that's true. But do we really need to obsess over whatever trap they're laying?"

"Of course, whatever they've prepared, we could just keep doing what we do best and be fine... but come on, what choice do we have? Our team's getting outweighed at this weight class."

Napoleon said it best: massive armies have no need for tactics.

For those born ahead of the pack, the weight class itself is the strategy. If we politely do nothing and fight a straight, honest, head-on battle, it's us who gets blown apart.

So if the opponent has a scheme in motion, neutralizing it is the surest path to victory.

Think it through again. Park Dong-min sunbae, rushed back from rehab... a fully unleashed starting lineup...

But Kang Min-hyuk, listening to all this from the side, once again derailed my deduction.

"If that's the reasoning, then rather than hunting for their trap, shouldn't we be free to use an unorthodox tactic of our own?"

"Ugh! Just shut up for a second, I'm on the verge of something—"

"We prepare a strategy of our own?"

And Minsu hyung, bless him, actually responded to that idiotic remark.

"Minsu hyung, you're seriously taking that seriously? Don't encourage him. Half-baked cute tricks just get crushed by the textbook answer."

In a head-on confrontation like this, any clever little gambit stood a high chance of doing nothing against an opponent who could simply overwhelm you with fundamentals. Kang Min-hyuk, clearly unable to follow my ironclad logic, stared at me with an expression of pure bewilderment.

But Minsu hyung answered in a tone far more serious than I expected.

"No, wait. If we genuinely made a move of our own, then maybe..."

And then Minsu hyung, suddenly radiating a drive completely unlike his usual self, began muttering to himself, lost in thought.

What is this? Since when is that man the fired-up type?

I say it every time, but to Bang Min-soo, baseball was just a job. No grand sense of mission, no burning loyalty to the team, no excessive devotion to his teammates.

Just the ordinary camaraderie, work ethic, and mild company pride that any office worker carries. But even office workers find the strength to push through for the year-end bonus, don't they?

Bang Min-soo's current state was exactly that.

"Alright! With our advancement to the South Division Series, headquarters has sent down a bonus envelope! The postseason isn't over, so I can't approve team dinners or drinks just yet — but on your way home tonight, stop by and pick up a little something for your families."

The rumors that Seoul Group Chairman Han Tae-gun loved baseball had apparently not been exaggerated one bit.

Ever since the chairman began exerting real influence over team operations two years ago, investment had actually shrunk, leading some to whisper that his baseball-loving reputation was nothing but a mask.

But while this year hadn't seen big spending on player contracts, the investment flowing into team facilities and player welfare was the largest in franchise history. They'd even built a brand-new swimming pool at the second-team training complex — even a clueless athlete could tell the money being thrown around had changed by entire orders of magnitude.

And yet, with the rebuild still unfinished, the team had clawed its way to third in the South and reached the fall postseason? Won the playoffs, no less, and advanced all the way to the Division Series?

Postseason bonuses for FA-signed players were spelled out as separate contract options, but ordinary players had no such guarantees. They simply had to take whatever the club handed out. Some clubs, depending on the player, gave nothing at all.

Naturally, Seoul Group was different — in the same way their usual generosity had always been different.

"One... ten... a hundred... a thousand... General Manager, sir. I think these numbers got misprinted. This isn't a bonus envelope — did they send us the postseason dividend in advance?"

"No, that's right."

"Excuse me?"

Baseball players' salaries are usually discussed as annual figures, but payment worked no differently from any other office worker's — monthly. Precisely speaking, the annual salary divided by ten, paid out across ten months with the two inactive months carved out.

And this advancement-to-the-Division-Series commemorative bonus came to roughly two months of his regular monthly salary. No — that was the pre-tax figure, so in take-home terms it was closer to three or four months.

"And listen. I heard this from the young madam in passing... if we make the Korean Series, or heaven forbid, actually win it... you know? Separate from the dividends. She's prepared something so big you wouldn't even dare imagine it."

As far as Bang Min-soo knew, the young madam was the chairman's deeply cherished granddaughter. Coming from that person's mouth, there was absolutely no way it was a lie.

Which meant if they somehow won it all, he'd receive a bonus on top of everything, equal to an entire year's salary?

Bang Min-soo heard the cha-ching of a cash register ringing in his ears. Layer on top of that the unmistakable hint that a strong performance this year would translate into a hefty salary negotiation, and his motivation shot clean through the stratosphere.

He was so charged up that even Kim Yi-seon's words — which he would normally have brushed off with a shrug — struck him as a source of special inspiration.

"This is going to work. It has to work."

"Hyung, it's not something you can just decide to do—"

"No. You can do it."

In Bang Min-soo's assessment, with Kim Yi-seon on the mound, even a straight head-on battle was worth a shot. The Phoenix outclassed the Twins in overall strength, sure, but the two teams were stylistic opposites.

A team of explosive firepower that patched the holes in its slightly undermanned pitching staff through sheer offensive might. Stop that firepower, and you win. Just last year in the Korean Series, hadn't Lee Si-hwan — in his final season before his MLB challenge — taken two wins?

Though Lee Si-hwan's two wins had come by the skin of his teeth. And the Pyongyang Fighters had lost that Korean Series anyway.

Put another way: even Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk were subject to variables. So shouldn't they prepare a masterstroke to eliminate those very variables?

"I guarantee it. If this lands, this game at minimum is a guaranteed win. And if we play it right, the aftershocks will carry over into the next game too."

"You really think this can work?"

Kim Yi-seon kept whining halfheartedly, but honestly, there was no way that genius couldn't pull it off. The guy liked to spout nonsense about how he wasn't any kind of genius, just a hard worker — but what ordinary mortal masters a new breaking pitch in one or two weeks and deploys it in a real game? Twice, no less.

And so, thanks to a Bang Min-soo fired up in a way Kim Yi-seon had never seen before, the pitching strategy for the next game took shape in no time at all.

Division Series, Game 1. Gwangju Phoenix Field.

The Gwangju Phoenix, exercising their first-place rights, had summoned the challenger Seoul Twins to their home turf, with back-to-back home games secured through the next contest.

For a Phoenix team that desperately needed to scrape runs off Kim Yi-seon, facing him in their own ballpark rather than the vast expanse of the Jamsil Dome was a considerable advantage.

But flip it around, and the game carried just as much weight for the Phoenix pitcher. Gwangju's Park Dong-min chose not to dodge that pressure — he chose to savor it.

"Dong-min, you holding up okay?"

"Feeling sharp, Coach."

Somehow or other, the bite on his stuff had climbed back to roughly its pre-injury level. How his fine control and stamina would hold up, only a real game would tell.

"If it gets rough, don't push through it. Just having you out there is a huge help managing the mound, so don't worry about burning through the bullpen."

Park Dong-min answered nothing. He simply grinned and readied himself to walk up the mound.

He thought back to that outing in the Premier 12, before the injury. The anticipation of a stage as weighty as Korea versus Japan. The pride that refused to hand his spot to a young junior so easily. The raw desire to simply play.

The same emotions he felt now, differing only in degree. In a sense, this start was the rematch for that game.

Back then they'd been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠teammates, so it had ended in that awkward way — he'd gone down injured and Kim Yi-seon had filled the void. This time, it would be a true, head-on duel.

He felt better than he had in years — so good that even the tremors of nerves registered as pure excitement.

He stepped onto the mound, traded a few easy tosses with his catcher, took one slow look around the ballpark — oddly hollow without a crowd — and turned his gaze back toward home plate, where stood the Twins' leadoff hitter.

"Play ball!"

With the umpire's call, the game was underway.

The Twins' leadoff hitter was Ha Joong-yeon. A shortstop hitting in the high .260s — a respectable level of hitter, but a shortstop-level hitter nonetheless. The fact that a man like that had to bat leadoff said everything about how dire the Twins' lineup truly was.

But a lion gives its all even when hunting a single rabbit.

Park Dong-min gripped the ball tight and fired his first pitch.

"Stee-rike!"

Maybe it was because he'd been looking forward to this game, or maybe — as he'd always believed — he was simply built for the big stage, but the ball was coming out better than he'd dared imagine.

A good start put him in an even better mood. So then, pitch two.

"Stee-rike!"

With the count dug this deep, the next pitch was the moment to unveil the new weapon he'd been preparing.

Since the day of his injury, Park Dong-min had carried a wellspring of fury and motivation. Far too much to simply lie back and rest because he'd been hurt.

So he'd gone looking for a way to sharpen his baseball mind without taxing his body. Studying theory.

Not the lazy route — grumbling that Korean baseball was behind the times, or taking a month or two of light tutoring from a foreign coach — but actually sitting down to read and digest professional literature himself.

It hadn't been easy. His English was inadequate from the start, forcing him to lean on the team's interpreter and data analysts, and even their simplified explanations left him floundering for ages. A brain that had done nothing but play baseball wasn't going to turn into a scholar overnight.

Still, he gritted his teeth and kept at it, one piece at a time, until he'd worked through the latest theories and all manner of scientific analysis.

The material transformed his overall game management — his very eye for baseball. Compare the Park Dong-min of a year ago to the Park Dong-min of today, and while the baseball skill might be a wash, the knowledge gap was an abyss.

But had it actually helped his pitching? Not yet. Still mired in rehab, he hadn't been able to experiment with his own body, and baseball was never a sport where reading a few pages translated instantly into results.

And yet there was exactly one thing — one new weapon he'd absorbed purely from the page and made his own almost immediately.

Park Dong-min kept his familiar grip exactly as it was, adjusting only the position of the seams to something just slightly off from normal.

And he threw. Maybe the fine-tuning still needed work, because the ball didn't quite break where he intended —

"Stee-rike three! You're out!!!"

The ball broke along a trajectory he himself had never thrown in his life, then darted away from the batter's bat like a fleeing rabbit.

He still didn't fully grasp the principle behind it. But the new theory — the new weapon — he'd picked up in his recent studies was the SSW theory.

Merely adjusting the position of the seams could reshape a pitch's entire trajectory. What a wonderful age we live in, where absolutely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everything gets researched.

"Wow, damn. How is that hyung somehow better than before his injury?"

Thus spake Kim Yi-seon, moments before taking the mound, with all the eloquence of a stunned goldfish.

Bang Min-soo couldn't have cared less. It was the Twins' offense, after all. He'd never expected anything from it.

They'd gone down meekly, three up, three down — which wouldn't have mattered in the slightest if Kim Yi-seon had actually prepared what he'd promised. And normally, that would have been exactly what happened.

Bang Min-soo plopped down behind home plate and readied his mitt to receive.

And then the sign came in from the dugout.

Hearing that, you might not believe it, but even in Kim Yi-seon's games, the pitching signs always came from the dugout. Bang Min-soo himself rarely called his own pitches — he mostly relayed the dugout's instructions word for word.

He did adjust the tempo on his own judgment, but the man was famously the type to pass along the dugout's requests as-is — about as far from the classic "field general" catcher as you could get.

But not today. Bang Min-soo gave the barest nod that he'd seen it, then immediately wiped the sign from his mind.

Because today, Bang Min-soo had prepared a very special strategy of his own. Bland boilerplate like that was precisely what he was supposed to ignore.

In fairness, he could have calmly shared the plan with the manager and coaches once he'd thought of it — the thought simply never crossed his mind. Partly because they'd have had an aneurysm, but mostly because by now, Kim Yi-seon had rubbed off on him far more than anyone would like to admit.

The opposing batter stepped in, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠game began, and Bang Min-soo immediately flashed the signs for the strategy he'd prepared.

Normally Kim Yi-seon would have shaken his head side to side or stubbornly fired back his own sign first, but this time he simply accepted it with a sulky expression.

And then he slid his glove onto his left hand.

A ripple of commotion ran through both dugouts. Which was fair enough, really.

Gwangju Phoenix's leadoff hitter was Seo Yo-han. A left-handed batter. And Kim Yi-seon was by no means bad against lefties with his splitter — if anything, he was stronger against righties.

So Kim Yi-seon chose to throw right-handed? And that's where the questions began.

Then, with the glove settled and the batter settled into his stance, came the first pitch.

Crack—!

He'd clearly fought the pitch off, but Gwangju's Seo Yo-han tilted his head, puzzled.

And this — this was the strategy Bang Min-soo had prepared. Having shown them that pitch, now came the reversal.

"Stee-rike!"

And this time the batter looked utterly lost — frozen so completely he couldn't even manage a swing.

The strategy Bang Min-soo had devised wasn't complicated.

Kim Yi-seon had already played a full season, showing opponents plenty of himself. The Gwangju Phoenix alone had squared off against him five times.

Which meant that, setting aside whether anyone could actually handle him, the league had at least slowly grown accustomed to him.

The hitters had surely trained their pitch-speed recognition to match Kim Yi-seon's effective velocity. And no matter how patternless Kim Yi-seon was, the menu of breaking balls he could throw was finite, so they'd drilled responses to each of those too.

Above all, because he was a switch pitcher, he was forever poking at hitters' weak sides ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— so every opponent would have practiced nothing but facing their weaker hand.

So they decided to flip everything on its head. Flip the handedness, and flip the blazing fastball he'd no doubt spent countless hours preparing to face.

When Kim Yi-seon heard the plan, he conceded the first part was manageable — but demanded of Bang Min-soo how the second was even possible. It's not as if anyone can freely dial the velocity of a pitch up and down at will. That's Kang Min-hyuk's party trick, and nobody else's.

But had Bang Min-soo really cooked up a plan with no way to execute it?

"Stee-rike three! Out!!"

Exactly. Not the same pitch at all — you just throw something that looks like a fastball.

The ball Kim Yi-seon was throwing now was the very slider that had been judged unusable back in his new-pitch practice sessions.

The one that barely seemed to break at all — a flat, sluggish, slightly droopier-than-normal garbage fastball.

Of course, even a dead-hanging slab of a slider becomes serviceable the moment it touches the mid-150s. Kim Yi-seon's raw stuff was simply so absurd that it had been useless for him; your average KBO pitcher throwing a fastball at that velocity could at least sneak a sip of first-team coffee.

So use it. Thrown on its own, it's just a worthless, hanger-shaped fastball scraping 150. But hurl it suddenly at hitters bracing for a demented 160-plus rising fastball, and it becomes an unhittable missile.

You spent all that time preparing for a straight, honest, head-on battle? Then the answer is simple — just don't throw the pitch they prepared for.