The Opener
I'd declared with all the swagger in the world that I'd smash everything in my path, but this week's schedule alone was shaping up to be anything but easy.
"Who the hell drew up this schedule? It's absolute garbage."
Suwon High on Saturday, Poeun High on Sunday. Both schools in the southern Gyeonggi region had long been grouped with the traditionally mighty Donghyun High as one of the 'Big Three,' consistently posting strong results even if they'd wobbled a bit this season. And now games against both of them had landed on us back to back.
"Coach, with a schedule like this, which games am I pitching and which ones is Min-hyuk taking?"
The coach fell into a long, wordless deliberation. Honestly, I couldn't see what there was to think about. Weren't the two of us currently ranked first and third in the league? A team at 6-1 or a team at 5-2 — six of one, half a dozen of the other. Just slot us in wherever.
The old Jeil High strategy had Min-hyuk start against strong teams to eat up as many innings as possible and save arms, while Kang-cheol hyung and I handled the weak ones. But this time both opponents were strong teams.
After turning it over for a good while, the coach finally spoke up, cautiously.
"Yi-seon. That thing you mentioned before — was it true?"
"Which thing?"
"That kid, Jun-soo."
Oh, that. After the last Donghyun game, I'd told him that Seo Jun-soo completely loses the plot the moment he gets into the late innings.
But that's the kind of thing that needs a longer look and an accumulation of data before you can draw conclusions. Truly, our coach — his faith in me is rock solid.
"I don't know if you'll believe me, but even right now his stuff is decent, and it'll only get better — except the second he reaches the late innings, his head goes completely. Past the sixth, forget his control — his velocity wobbles too."
It's common enough for nervous types to lose the strike zone, but for their velocity to drop off too? That's genuinely outside the bounds of common sense. If he were a starter you might chalk it up to fatigue, but it happens in relief appearances as well.
If the manga hadn't had that scene early on where everyone assumed he just had poor stamina and got fooled by it, I probably would've been fooled too.
The coach was willing to take my word for it, but his face still said he wasn't entirely convinced. I wanted to tell him the kid could only exist because this world runs on manga logic — but then, baseball as a sport is absolutely crawling with bizarre ups and jinxes. Who's to say there isn't another player like that, past life or present?
"Alright. In that case, you're starting against Poeun. But your partner won't be Kang-cheol like usual — it'll be Jun-soo."
"Sorry? Kang-cheol hyung's throwing better right now, isn't he?"
The moment he started asking about Jun-soo again I'd figured this was coming, but he's actually doing it? Kang-cheol hyung might be a nervous wreck, but the quality of his pitching is good enough to pass as a second starter at a decent mid-tier school.
"Can't be helped. Kang-cheol struggles with back-to-back outings. I trust you and Min-hyuk, but you never know what might happen. As a manager, you prepare for the worst."
Ah — fair point, actually. If Min-hyuk couldn't go the distance yesterday and Ha Kyung-woo came in as the closer, then today, if I and Kang-cheol hyung failed to finish the game together, there'd be nobody left to take the mound.
That's the curse of a thin rotation. Other powerhouses supposedly have three pitchers per class — six from the upper grades alone, nine if you dip into the freshmen — while we've got four usable arms, five if you force Jun-soo into the count. There's one more pitcher among the remaining first-years, but at his current level he's unusable.
This problem would solve itself if I just went full Min-hyuk and threw complete games, but I've capped my pitch counts to manage my body. It'd feel a bit petty to break my own rules just to win one ordinary league game.
So in the end, like the coach was doing right now, the answer was to wring every last drop out of what we had.
"Setting the Jun-soo issue aside — why am I on Poeun and Min-hyuk on Suwon? Poeun's ranked higher, isn't it?"
The gap between them is negligible, granted, but still. If we were following the old strategy, Min-hyuk should be facing Suwon.
"There's a reason for everything. Min-hyuk would probably handle either of them just fine, but for you, a team like Poeun is a much more comfortable matchup than Suwon."
Time slipped by, and soon it was game day. We made the trip to Yongin Civic Baseball Stadium to take on Poeun High.
For the record, Min-hyuk had thrown eight innings of one-run ball the day before. The problem was that it hadn't been a complete game.
"Yi-seon. Don't feel any pressure about it, but know that Kyung-woo can't pitch today."
That guy's stamina really is that bad — what is he planning to do with himself? We play twice a week and he still can't handle back-to-back outings?
Barely acknowledging the coach's plea — dressed up as a casual aside — to eat as many innings as possible, I turned to check on today's starter, Jun-soo.
"How are you feeling today?"
"Fine, sir!"
Fine, my ass. He's so stiff he might as well be a robot.
Everyone had told him it was okay, but that game where he gave up ten runs in six innings was clearly still weighing on him.
Like this, even the early-innings devil Seo Jun-soo would never throw the ball properly.
Nothing for it, then. And judging by the look on his face, this is probably exactly what the coach was hoping for.
"Ever heard of an opener?"
"An opener...? What's that?"
Am I ahead of my time? I thought it was around this era that it showed up.
"Over in America, some manager invented a new pitching role. Instead of your usual starter following behind, you send a guy out first to throw just one or two innings and then hand it off."
"There's a role like that? I didn't know."
"Yeah, well — our coach keeps up with the latest trends better than you'd think. So think of yourself as our opener today. Get through one or two clean innings and I'll take it from there. Throw loose and free."
For most pitchers, hungry for innings, being told to come out early would sting.
But for Jun-soo, who felt crushed by the weight of innings, his whole face visibly relaxed.
The game began in the bottom of the first. Our hitters had been retired one-two-three in the top half, so I never even got a plate appearance. The opposing pitcher was an ace with draft buzz of his own — no wonder the boys couldn't get anything going early.
Jun-soo took the mound. Whatever nerves he'd had, the conversation with me seemed to have settled him; he looked relaxed.
It was the Poeun dugout that was in an uproar instead. What's with them?
"That's the problem with guys who live and die by data analysis. Something shows up with no data behind it, and they panic!"
The coach was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, gleefully launching into an explanation like a man savoring sweet, long-awaited revenge.
"That lot keep a dedicated scouting analyst on staff and play data-obsessed baseball, analyzing every opponent to death. Other schools' coaches might as well be cavemen as far as they're concerned. Filthy bastards. It's not that I don't know data works — it's that I don't have the money for it! Let them get a taste of it themselves for once."
There was clearly a mountain of grievances buried under that. I could only imagine how much goodwill-building he'd endured over the years.
"Is that why you put Jun-soo in today?"
"That's not the only reason, but it's part of it. See their dugout? A stack of cameras, analysis laptops — the full smug production. Against that kind of crowd, Min-hyuk would work, but kids like you and Jun-soo are the special medicine."
With that, the coach's gaze drifted to Jun-soo standing on the mound.
"You've trained alongside him for weeks now, so you know. First time facing Jun-soo, nobody touches him."
"That's definitely true."
Jun-soo becoming a demon in the early innings wasn't purely a matter of mentality. Technically, too, that kid possessed one truly devilish advantage.
While the coach and I were busy chewing the fat, the leadoff hitter stepped into the box and Jun-soo readied his delivery.
Then, after that bizarre windup of his, the ball came sailing in and smacked into the zone.
"Striiiike!!!!"
The batter blinked, as if double-checking whether his eyes had actually seen that pitch correctly. Being a left-handed hitter probably made it worse.
"That's it! That's exactly it! A type like this pops up out of nowhere with zero data on him — drives you insane, doesn't it? Never saw it coming, did he?"
Every time a strike nailed the zone, the coach couldn't contain himself. The way opposing batters got rattled, and the way the coach could flatly declare that nobody touches him on first sight — Jun-soo really was a pitcher with extraordinary traits.
For starters, he was a left-handed sidearm pitcher. Sidearm alone isn't unheard of — you see it fairly often. But a left-handed sidearmer? That's practically an endangered species.
And what made Jun-soo special didn't stop there.
"Striiiike!!"
A fastball clipping the outer edge of the zone. The batter turned to check the velocity posted on the scoreboard, then went back to blinking at the field in disbelief.
139 km/h
On speed alone, that was a textbook high school meatball. But the batter clearly didn't believe a single digit on that board.
The reason for that reaction lay in Jun-soo's delivery. When he threw, his kicking right foot landed nearly three extra paces to the left — an extreme cross-fire delivery. Already throwing sidearm, with its extreme horizontal movement, and then layering an extreme cross-fire on top of that? And that guy was painting the left border of the plate with it?
"Striiiike!!! You're out!"
Get used to it and maybe, but on first look there's no adjusting whatsoever. Same-side hitters have it even worse. It's practically a ball appearing from behind your back and landing in the strike zone.
In a corner of the Poeun dugout sat a scouting analyst, replaying the game footage in real time.
That analyst's head was spinning badly right now.
"No middle school data — apparently no national tournament appearances, so there's nothing at all. His high school data is just one previous outing, and he got pulled from that after ten runs in six innings, so it's hardly fit for analysis purposes."
In principle, no devices capable of live communication were allowed in the dugout. The association-approved analysis laptop and tablet were the full extent of it, which meant the onboard databases were limited too.
So when it came to Seo Jun-soo, all he could do was analyze the pitches he was seeing thrown in real time. And if those pitches had been closer to textbook form, live analysis might have been manageable.
"Right foot stepping nearly fifty centimeters sideways — extreme cross-fire. Coming around like that, he throws a natural two-seamer from sidearm. But his second pitch is a slider with movement in exactly the opposite direction of his fastball."
Isn't this a bit much, though?
Pitchers with this unique a profile were hard to find even on paper. Hitters might have faced sidearmers before, but how often would anyone run into cross-fire this extreme?
And especially the easy-tunnel between the sidearm two-seamer and the slider — it was a downright unhinged, vicious combination. Even if the ball came in a little slow or the individual pitches lacked sharp bite, that pairing would be miserable to face.
"Striiiike!!! You're out!"
And just like that, the third inning came to an end.
When the schedule had first been set, the analyst had counted himself lucky. Going purely by the record so far, Wirye Jeil High was a textbook starter-driven team.
The core of it was the one-two punch of Kang Min-hyuk and Kim Yi-seon. So with the Sunday game set and Jeil High's Saturday opponent being Suwon, the luck had seemed considerable — surely the ace who pitched Saturday wouldn't also be confirmed for Sunday?
And Kang Min-hyuk had indeed pitched Saturday. All they'd needed was to come thoroughly prepared with counters to Kim Yi-seon, and the game would go smoothly. Besides, for whatever reason, Kim Yi-seon was deliberately limiting his innings and sharing the mound with his partner, Choi Kang-cheol.
Right up to that point in their projections, the Poeun coaching staff had been entirely at ease. Choi Kang-cheol was a textbook pitcher, easy to analyze almost to the point of insult. Assume Kang-cheol takes the mound, prepare for him perfectly, and steering the game to a win would be simple.
But every bit of that preparation and projection had turned to garbage. All because of that one unfamiliar first-year out there. Still, it was a little early to give up.
"Analyst-nim. Do you see any way to crack that kid?"
It was the top of the fourth, during Poeun's turn in the field. While the analyst replayed the previous innings' pitches, the visibly tense Poeun manager came over to him.
"It's complicated. If I had to point to something — he rarely uses the slider as his putaway pitch. But with only three innings of data, I can't swear by it."
Data only flexes its power once it accumulates, so there was nothing to be done about a pitcher on his first appearance. In the end, the only option was to see more of him and grow accustomed.
"Understood for now. I'll have the hitters try to work him deep into counts. The boys are slowly getting a feel for him — shall we check back then?"
Small mercies. That's how these unorthodox deliveries usually go. First time facing them, you get shelled. Second time, your eyes start adjusting. From the third trip through the order, you're the one doing the shelling.
By the fourth, every hitter would have faced him once or twice — maybe now they'd finally hit.
But while manager and analyst were deep in discussion, Poeun's half of the inning ended faster than expected. Today's lineup had been stymied by the unexpected variable, but the defense was executing exactly as prepared.
Proof that their data-driven, customized game plans weren't wrong. The manager and analyst regained their confidence.
And with that confidence, they doubled down on analysis and counters. First, they had the hitters pool everything they'd experienced at the plate. Through that process and a good session of brainstorming, the analysis kept advancing.
And now came the fourth inning — the second time through the order. From here, everyone would be facing Seo Jun-soo for their second or third at-bat. They had the feel for him now; all they had to do was score.
"... Isn't that Kim Yi-seon?"
But the pitcher climbing the mound was Kim Yi-seon.
Baseball is a genuinely dirty, rotten game.
The opposing manager, unable to contain himself, was venting furiously at our coach — 'How do you pull a scoreless starter after three innings?''A decoy start? Where's your sportsmanship?' — but our coach didn't so much as blink.
Instead, armed with everything I'd taught him, he fired right back with gems like 'You play data baseball and you've never watched MLB?' and 'That's what an opener is, you ignoramus.' A thoroughly civilized debate was underway.
So erudite was the exchange that if the umpire hadn't threatened both of them with ejection, it would've come to blows over the collars any second.
And so the ruckus died down, and the game resumed.
Naturally, I held no grudge against the opposing school. The coach clearly held plenty, but that was none of my business.
Still, I had to prove it properly today and stomp them flat, or my words would never carry any weight. And honestly? I wasn't scared at all. So what if they're one of the southern Gyeonggi powerhouses? At the end of the day, they're just the biggest bully on the neighborhood block.
Teams at this level, you have to be able to crush with pure force. If I couldn't manage that much, then goals like the Grand Slam would never be within reach.
Poeun's cleanup hitter stepped into the box. I'd studied the scouting report, but like Nam Kang-min always said, emptying my head seemed to work better — so I'd forgotten all of it.
Who cares. Same as always — four-seam, right down the pipe. Up in the zone. An easy, whipping swing—
"Striiiike!!"
152 km/h
"What good does analyzing the data do?! You knew and you still couldn't hit it!! That's the point!"
Ugh, Coach. Would you keep it down.
Bottom of the ninth. Analyst and manager alike had more or less written off today's game.
Kim Yi-seon hadn't been a pitcher for long, so the material on him was thin. To be fair, there was more on him than on that Seo Jun-soo kid who'd just come off the mound. And his popularity meant there was plenty of video footage, so there'd been no shortage of material to analyze.
They'd prepared thoroughly and drilled it into their hitters. And the adjustments they'd asked for weren't unreasonable — take the swing a touch higher, start it a half-beat earlier. Simple instructions, and not just spoken: they'd trained the feel into the hitters' bodies as well.
"Striiiike! You're out!!!"
But what did any of it matter? They knew, and they still couldn't touch him. Worse, all those drilled adjustments had been wiped clean by the time spent facing that Seo Jun-soo character beforehand. Of course — the ball that had been flying in from the side was now stabbing down from up high; no wonder they couldn't find their timing.
The manager glanced at the scoreboard. 151 km/h. The lunatic's first pitch and his sixtieth were one kilometer per hour apart. What kind of high schooler does that? Even pro starters see their velocity drop two or three k over a start.
After that monstrous four-seam had racked up the out, the Jeil High pitching coach climbed the mound for a chat. The conversation ran a little long, and then Kim Yi-seon walked off as Choi Kang-cheol took over.
An iron wall of a pitcher leaving the game ought to spark a flicker of hope — but the Poeun manager felt none at all.
Wirye Jeil High 5 : 0 Yongin Poeun High
Well — naturally. They were down 5-0 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and no one aboard.
The old theory — 'by the second or third trip through the order, you can hit anyone!' — had been turned against them instead.
Poeun's starter, who had pitched brilliantly, had shown cracks from the fifth inning with a run allowed, and then in the sixth he'd finally buckled and given up four.
They'd gritted their teeth and held on, thinking that if they could just face Kim Yi-seon for several at-bats, the feel would come. It wasn't as if only their own pitchers were being figured out, after all. And on the data-analysis front, they'd been the ones ahead.
"Coach. Honestly, one more at-bat and I think they'll crack him."
"That was their fourth at-bat against him, you know."
But with Kim Yi-seon, that sort of thing took a while longer. Fair enough — anyone who could pick up a 150-plus fastball in one or two at-bats would be hearing his name called in the pro draft tomorrow.
Analysis was all well and good, but it only worked if the human body could execute it. Today, the Poeun manager had felt that truth bone-deep.
The result, of course, was a Jeil High victory. Even for Kang-cheol hyung, one out was well within scoreless territory — and the game ended exactly 5-0.
And obviously, today's Player of the Game was me. 5.2 innings, 6 strikeouts, no walks, 3 hits, zero runs — a line that cleared the requirements for a winning pitcher with room to spare, starter or not. I'd picked up a hit at the plate today too, so the package looked about complete.
I took the mic the PR manager held out to me with perfect confidence and began the interview.
"Kim Yi-seon has been named Player of the Game once again today. Please share a few words with us."
The manager had been every bit as furious as I was about this whole affair, raging over it like it were her own — for all her icy appearance, she apparently had a very warm heart.
Which was exactly why she'd laid out the stage before me now, practically inviting me to say whatever I wanted.
Well then, I'd better oblige her.
"Lately, people have been saying things about us. That we're just lucky. That we only care about our looks."
The slander had been especially vicious around that photo of me with a splotch of white sunscreen on my face. Min-ah, who'd been the one to dab it on, had felt terrible, convinced I was getting hated on because of her — and thinking about it now just made me angrier all over again.
"Honestly, they're right. We were lucky. No matter how well I throw, shutting out the opponent every single game isn't exactly easy, is it?"
The manager looked slightly taken aback by the words coming out of my mouth. Just wait — this is the setup.
"And just how lucky are we? Every game, we seem to run into teams weaker than us and win. I expect it'll be the same going forward."
At that breezily delivered declaration, the manager froze — startled now in a completely different direction. Her hands asked: are you sure you want this aired as-is, or should we reshoot? No, ma'am. No need to be shocked — it's a perfectly clean, unvarnished fact.
If Min-hyuk and I win every game we pitch, then every team we face is beneath us. That's all there is to it.