An Opponent You Can't Afford to Lose to, Even at Rock-Paper-Scissors (3)

Japan's manager Matsuzaka had been confronted with an unexpected situation, but he hadn't panicked. Well, to be precise, he hadn't.

The opposing starting pitcher being pulled early with an injury? That one he had to count as pure luck on Korea's side.

Then the pitcher who took the mound being someone Japan had never faced in the previous games? He'd analyzed every pitcher on the Korean national team thoroughly, differences in quality notwithstanding. The players might not be familiar with them, but the data was all there for the taking.

And that pitcher being an eighteen-year-old high schooler — a right-handed submarine pitcher? It was a genuine ambush, an out-of-nowhere choice, but being surprising was all it was. Japan had nowhere near as little experience against submarine pitchers as the Americans did, and the current Japanese lineup had five left-handed batters in it.

Look at it however he might, it only seemed like Manager Ban Il-soo's desperate gamble after long deliberation. Kang Min-hyuk's raw ability had plenty of elements worth praising, but pure talent alone wasn't enough to talk down a stage like an international tournament final — a Korea-Japan game, no less.

Yes. It shouldn't be that easy. And it wasn't.

"Two balls, one strike. Pitch number four... a grounder chattering toward short! Fielded at second, thrown to first — he's out! A crisp double play!"

"Take a look at Kang Min-hyuk's expression. A young pitcher on a stage this big — you'd expect him to waver after giving up a hit, wouldn't you? But he coaxed the double play out of them without so much as a flicker."

"Showing composure beyond his years, Korea's Kang Min-hyuk. And with that, he shuts down this inning beautifully as well."

The batter trudged back to the dugout, huffing and puffing as if the disappointment were lodged somewhere in his chest.

Migawa was one of the better contact hitters on the Japanese national team, a left-handed batter famous in particular for feasting on right-handed pitchers. And yet he'd mishandled Kang Min-hyuk's pitch and handed over a double play just like that.

He got Migawa out? Even the greatest hitters top out around a .400 on-base rate. Statistically, it could happen any number of times.

He induced a double play? As is common with pitchers who release from a low arm angle, Kang Min-hyuk counted a tailing two-seam and a sinker among his primary weapons. For a pitcher like that, grounders and double plays were simply a way of life.

And yet that was exactly why Manager Matsuzaka had lost his initial composure, wondering whether what was happening on that mound could truly be possible.

"Damn it. If your focus locks onto the two-seam, the sinker, and the changeup, a slider comes screaming in. But the moment you start anticipating the slider, a pitch off the outer edge sneaks away from you. And just when your head is stuffed full with those two things, he drops the upshoot on you..."

Migawa sat on the bench, running through his at-bat with the hitting coach.

And it wasn't just Migawa — every other hitter was saying the same thing: we got fooled. They huddled together, earnestly discussing how not to fall for the pattern. Japanese hitters, unlike the American-born ones, weren't strangers to submarine pitching, and the veterans each had their own set of countermeasures worked out.

That was the part Matsuzaka could not understand. Granted, the kid had a deep arsenal, and the situation favored him in the psychological battle. But even so — was he seriously claiming to win the mind games every single time against professionals with years of big-league seasoning under their belts?

Saying "I got fooled" was the same as saying if I don't get fooled, I can hit him. That was how modest the pure stuff itself had seemed.

And yet among all the hitters who hadn't been fooled so far, through an inning and two-thirds, there had been exactly one. And even that single hit, if you asked the man himself, was nothing more than a lucky guess he happened to square up.

Only the third inning had ended, and already Matsuzaka could feel the game drifting somewhere his preparation hadn't accounted for.

While the Japanese national team was clicking its tongue at Kang Min-hyuk, Kang Min-hyuk was finding the Japanese lineup a considerable battle in its own right.

This was his third time pitching on the senior stage, but the gulf he felt was one that dwarfed even the previous two outings.

Puerto Rico in the exhibition games, Canada in the group stage — compared to high school hitters, they'd been on a completely different level, yes, but they hadn't felt like opponents beyond his ability to handle.

But the Japanese national team?

"Two balls, two strikes. Pitch number six... foul ball."

"Minase is a hitter renowned as a contact specialist even within the NPB. Kang Min-hyuk's stuff is excellent today, but he's not an easy man to deal with."

The feeling of being in over his head was growing stronger by the pitch. Kang Min-hyuk's pitching style was well-defined: a finesse artist who carved opponents up with pinpoint control and a diverse arsenal.

Which meant that if the opponent stopped falling for the patterns he used to create confusion — or worse, learned to counter even the ones that had deceived them — his pitching would inevitably become more and more constrained.

Even just now, he'd thrown a high fastball and followed it with a sinker boring in at the hands, and the Japanese hitter had wrenched his bat around to chop it off. Fine. That pattern was sealed.

Counting like this, the number of sequences Kang Min-hyuk had privately ruled out in his own head had already climbed past eight. None of them had been his bread-and-butter in high school ball, but they'd all earned their share of outs.

And when moments like this came, the person who crossed his mind was, of course, his arch-rival currently loosening his shoulder in the bullpen — Kim Yi-seon.

If he, too, had been overflowing with talent like that guy — if he could throw pitches hitters knew were coming and still couldn't touch — how much easier things would be.

"Two balls, two strikes. Pitch number seven. He swings and misses! Strikeout!"

"You're telling me a slider can break that much? It nearly crossed the entire plate!"

"Minase's bat gives chase, but the ball is long gone!"

But there was no room for envying what he didn't have. What he had was meager, but with it, he would do his best.

And so Kang Min-hyuk finished off another scoreless inning, nursing a thought that would have sent both Kim Yi-seon and the Japanese national team into convulsions had they ever learned of it.

Old man Lee Young-gil watched the game with his palms slick with sweat.

When Park Dong-min first came off the mound injured, a wave of dread had crashed over him — are we actually going to lose this? — but once Kang Min-hyuk took over, the mound had steadied.

The problem was the hitting.

"Argh, why is it runners left on AGAIN?"

His granddaughter wailed beside him, and old man Lee Young-gil felt exactly the same way.

There was no question Korea had the upper hand at the plate. Two, three hits were spraying off their bats every inning, and now and then a walk put a man on.

And yet no runs. No runs, even so!

"For heaven's sake, stop spreading it out and bunch it all into one inning! Do that and we'd already have three on the board!"

He resonated violently with his granddaughter's lament. Was he supposed to call it the Japanese getting lucky? Or credit the enemy — the enemy! — with truly first-rate crisis management?

Thanks to which, the score stood at 0-0 even after the top of the fifth had ended.

Word had it that casual fans usually found these pitcher's duels tedious — but a bat forever dangling on the knife's edge of a breakthrough, fused with the title of Korea versus Japan? Casual fan or diehard, everyone watching this game was losing their minds.

Boredom was the one complaint that would never, ever be heard here.

"At this rate, if they take one big swing, the whole momentum could flip..."

"Hey! Watch your mouth! You'll jinx it!"

Old man Lee Young-gil barked a warning at his granddaughter for her ill-omened talk. It was unsettlingly grounded in reality, which made him anxious too.

And then—

"Huh? Yi-seon's coming in! What — well, that's game over, isn't it~"

His granddaughter's face suddenly went soft and easy. The player she adored was taking the mound, and it showed — pure, unclouded relief.

"You like him that much, huh?"

"Isn't it obvious? Even if it's Japan, Yi-seon's coming in, so we've already won. Grandpa, you should start getting ready to head to the Twins' stadium."

Old man Lee Young-gil found himself remembering the person he used to be, back when he'd cheered for the legendary stars of Korean baseball. Back then, whenever one of his players took the mound, the day's game was as good as won.

But those players, time and again, had turned strangely fragile the moment a Korea-Japan series rolled around.

"All right. If Kim Yi-seon takes the win today, next year I'll take our granddaughter here out to Jamsil myself."

"Really? No take-backs?"

But this time — this once — he hoped it would be different. Sure, there was the matter of beating Japan, but his granddaughter had no need to feel the wound he'd carried all those years ago.

And so he clasped his sweat-drenched hands together again and prayed with everything he had.

"""KIM YI-SEON! KIM YI-SEON! KIM YI-SEON!"""

The instant I stepped onto the mound, the cheers erupted. For the first time all game, a Korean chant punched clean through the Tokyo Dome, which until now had been stuffed to the rafters with Japanese support.

I turned my head and swept my gaze across the stands. It was pouring out of the corner where the Korean cheering section had gathered, sure — but scattered through the Japanese seats, I could pick out plenty of people cheering for me too. Every last one of them, women.

Listening closer, I could even make out a few wobbly, unpracticed pronunciations mixed in. I knew I'd gotten famous in Japan too, but I hadn't realized it went this far?

Part of me wanted to hold a fan meeting after the game, but sadly, this being a Korea-Japan match, I doubted any such soft, friendly event would be on the table no matter how it ended.

So, offering my silent apologies to the good fans of Japan, I studied the batter stepping into the box.

The name was Migawa... what was it again? Anyway, a hitter Kang Min-hyuk had specifically warned me about.

Watch yourself, Kim Yi-seon. The opposing hitters' bat control is better than you can imagine. They're capable of chopping off even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the gap between my fastball and sinker — sometimes turning it into a hit.

Kang Min-hyuk's sinker would run about as hard as my changeup, and they're chasing that? You really have to hand it to the Japanese obsession with making contact.

When a league is packed to bursting with freaks who spend their entire careers perfecting nothing but putting wood on the ball no matter what, of course the splitter becomes the national pitch.

The batter settled in, and I pulled my glove onto my right hand. Five lefties alone in Japan's lineup, and hadn't the righties said a right-hander's split was even nastier for them? That's how many pull-side guys and righty-lefty bats they run out there.

The moment I gloved up and set for the first pitch, Migawa fixed me with a distinctly sour glare, as if something about me rubbed him the wrong way. So I glared right back. What're you looking at.

There really is something about Japanese hitters that gets under a pitcher's skin. At least the American guys lay off anything borderline and, if they decide a pitch is worth swinging at, will rip it even while accepting the strikeout — but these guys just go tck, tck, pecking away at singles.

Anyone watching the Japanese fans could tell — I bear no particular grudge against the nation of Japan or its people. But as one pitcher among many, I considered it my solemn duty to deliver judgment upon peck-swinging hitters like this one.

I checked the sign Sung Yeon-joon flashed me for the first pitch. Okay. Music to my ears.

I nodded and dropped into the set position. A short exhale, a light ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lift of the leg. Shoulder blades pulled back, hips locked in tight.

And the instant my foot landed far down the slope of the rubber, my whipping arm came through—

"Striiike!"

[160 km/h]

"First pitch, called strike! And the stuff is electric again today!"

"At this point, being amazed every time feels almost routine, doesn't it? The velocity is one thing, but the sheer confidence — first pitch of an at-bat, on a stage this size, dead center of the zone. Watching him, you'd almost think Kim Yi-seon is living his life for the second time."

"Kim Yi-seon showing form that shows no sign of fading whatsoever."

If the peck-swinging annoys you, there's only one answer. Grind them into the dirt with force.

The Japanese dugout echoed with nothing but hissed chikushos and kusos. This had gone past trading experience and countermeasures — it seemed they simply couldn't swallow the humiliation anymore.

The cause was the other young pup freshly arrived on the mound.

"Striiike! That's the out!"

[158 km/h]

"Called strike three! Kim Yi-seon sends another Japanese hitter back to the bench on a strikeout!"

"Twenty-six fastballs out of twenty-nine pitches at this point. Any further, and the Japanese hitters' pride is going to take some serious damage."

The pitch itself, first of all, was absurd. Japan had produced the occasional thrower touching those velocities, but there was something in his stuff that went beyond raw speed.

And of course, these were the finest hitters in Nippon Professional Baseball. Two players ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who'd carved out MLB careers weren't in this tournament, but even without them, they were more than worthy of being called Japan's very best. Under normal circumstances, no matter how majestic the stuff, throwing nothing but fastballs should have meant getting hit.

And yet the reason they couldn't touch Kim Yi-seon's fastball had something else blended into it.

"In my last at-bat it was 140s exploding up out of the dirt, and this at-bat I'm supposed to handle 150s hammering down from the sky. What exactly am I supposed to do with that..."

So grumbled one of the Japanese hitters, and he had put his finger on the real problem.

These hitters had spent the last inning and a half sharpening their timing against Kang Min-hyuk's fiendishly dancing pitches — and then, all at once, they were asked to face an honest, violent pitch arriving from a completely different height on a completely different clock. Of course the adjustment failed.

Human beings aren't machines that shift gears to recalibrate their feel mid-game. This was pitching management laced with a truly dreadful malice.

In the on-deck circle, taking slow, steadying breaths, stood Japan's cleanup hitter, Honda Hatsuya. Every other batter had already been toyed with by Kim Yi-seon at least once; he alone was meeting him for the first time.

Hatsuya was a hitter worthy of the traditional "ace hits fourth" lineup slot. His bat was exceptional, yes, but more than that, he carried the raw power to drive the ball out of the park at any moment.

And that was why he intended to approach this at-bat a little differently from the teammates who'd gone before him.

Korea had spray-painted hit after hit across the scoreboard without converting a single one. No runs meant that, runs-wise, Korea's lineup and his own had played to a draw so far.

So he would flip the game in one swing. In other words: he was hunting a home run.

Stepping into the box, he was greeted by Kim Yi-seon's insufferably confident posture. The man was so brimming with swagger that he'd thrown fastballs for the majority of today's outing.

An undeniable monster of a fastball, true — but having watched it this many times, Hatsuya could get a feel for the timing even without standing in against it himself.

He choked down hard on the bat. The timing he had; what he didn't know was how high the thing would climb, so he'd aim as far up top as he could. If it ran anything like a high fastball, he was ready to blow right over it.

With no runners aboard, Kim Yi-seon nonetheless went to the set as always, and without a beat of hesitation the first pitch came screaming in.

"Striiike!"

[136 km/h]

"First pitch breaking ball — swinging strike."

"Kim Yi-seon barely showed any offspeed today, and he ambushes the first pitch with one."

"Honda Hatsuya was clearly sitting on something up in the zone — he swings big, and immediately."

...The first pitch had been, of all things, a curveball. The moment he committed to the swing, he knew. But it was far too late for the bat to catch up.

More than that — a curveball in the mid-130s? What in the world was this man eating to throw that?

Hatsuya gathered himself and waited on the next pitch.

Right. Having now seen it up close, the polish on the breaking stuff itself wasn't anything extraordinary. There was a reason the man had thrown close to thirty fastballs in a row. Pitch two would be the heater. Naturally.

"Striiike!"

[137 km/h]

"Pitch two — another curveball!"

"Oh, that's beautiful. All that fastball-heavy gamesmanship was setting this up, wasn't it? When offspeed comes back-to-back like this after a steady diet of heat, a hitter's bat simply has no choice but to leak out."

"The count is two and oh."

Another curve? His face flushed hot at the bat slicing through empty air. He — one of the finest hitters in all of Japan — had whiffed twice against a curveball of the sort any random high schooler might spin up there.

His pride wasn't just bruised. It had detonated. The fury was hard to keep down.

This guy is messing with me. There's no doubt about it.

So thinking, he stepped back into the box — and there was Kim Yi-seon's face.

Smirk.

At that grinning face, the heat that had flooded to his head drained away in an instant. He should have been angrier. Somehow, he wasn't.

You're that transparently trying to provoke me? Right after throwing me two curveballs in a row?

Once the rage spun through a full revolution and came back around, his head cooled again. Deliberate. There was no other reading.

Common sense said it too — throwing a breaking ball of that quality to the same opponent three times running made no sense. What kind of player burns the same one-trick ambush three consecutive times on the biggest stage there is?

Calm restored, Hatsuya sat dead-red on the fastball. Judging by everything he'd seen of Kim Yi-seon's patterns, a setup this elaborate meant the next pitch was overwhelmingly likely to be heat.

Kim Yi-seon came set for pitch three. The smile was gone now, the face blank and indifferent — and that certainty only hardened. A bluff after all.

The ball arrived. The bat whipped through.

For one instant, the trajectory leaving his hand and the arc of the bat were one and the same—

"Striiike! OUT!!!"

[140 km/h]

"Swinging strike three! Kim Yi-seon shuts down the third inning scoreless as well!"

"Wow. I was in awe before, but that is astonishing nerve. Three curveballs in a row — a pitch he almost never uses!"

"And with that, the score remains 0-0. The balance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠holds, razor-thin!"

The ball's trajectory had dropped off a cliff at the last instant, and Hatsuya's swing carved through nothing but air.

"Hey, Yi-seon. You were grinning right before you threw your last pitch last inning. Why'd you smile?"

Asked with pure, uncomplicated curiosity, Si-hwan hyung's question left me at a loss for how to answer.

Because it reminded me of a guy who fell for the same trick three times in one crucial game? Explaining that was impossible — the man didn't exist in this world.