Chapter 36
36. Who Will Win the World Championship?
Lee Jin-woo’s game-tying solo home run in the top of the fifth.
The American dugout remained steady.
The game was not over.
And it was only one run.
“It’s fine. It’s only one run.”
“We’ll hit him again. Just like in the first.”
The American lineup remembered the first inning.
Noah and Jayden had hit Seo Ji-tae hard.
As Seo Ji-tae had said before, hitters received multiple chances.
Bottom of the fifth.
Seo Ji-tae returned to the mound.
The lineup began from the sixth hitter.
The American hitters had been instructed to drain the pitcher’s stamina.
Their strategy was simple.
Drag every at-bat out.
The sixth hitter, Jackson Ramsey, received a sign from the dugout.
[Either force him out early, or we’ll destroy him the third time through the lineup.]
To do that, they needed to make every plate appearance long.
He’s pitching three days in a row. You’ve survived this long because of luck. I’ll drag this out.
Naturally, Jackson expected the left-handed Seo Ji-tae.
But everyone noticed something strange.
The moment Jackson stepped into the box, Seo Ji-tae put the glove on his left hand.
He was changing throwing hands against the batter.
Jackson became confused.
Seo Ji-tae was a switch pitcher.
But changing hands against the same hitter?
Of course, Jackson had never experienced anything like it.
Seo Ji-tae’s right hand.
Right-handed underhand.
Lower than a normal underhand delivery.
But slightly higher than a true low underhand.
A middle underhand, as players called it.
A form that balanced velocity and movement.
“What?”
The left-handed pitcher Jackson had prepared for attacked from below.
A completely different height.
Seo Ji-tae’s left-handed pitching attacked the upper zone with high fastballs.
But now his right hand came from below.
Very low.
An upshoot rose from around the batter’s knees and sharply attacked the upper part of the strike zone.
“Strike!”
“...”
The batter did not swing.
What kind of disgusting pitch is this...
Another upshoot rose from below.
The timing...
After watching only the left-handed version, Jackson could not understand the maddening trajectory from the right hand.
He did not swing at the second pitch either.
Two strikes.
Then came the next pitch.
Seo Ji-tae mocked their plan by immediately changing the glove again.
Now the glove moved to his right hand.
“Huh? Is he allowed to do that?”
He changed hands against the same batter right in front of everyone.
Unfortunately for Jackson, the Venditte Rule did not exist yet in 2012.
Before his brain could fully process the situation, Seo Ji-tae’s left arm rose high.
Left-handed high leg kick.
His rising fastball attacked the upper zone.
This time the speed was 153 km/h.
Considerably lower than his best.
But after two pitches from an extremely low release point, this pitch came from above.
Jackson’s bat had already lost its way.
He swung helplessly.
“Strike, out!”
The difference in release point was more than 1.5 meters.
A baseball takes only around 0.4 seconds to reach home plate.
Could a hitter recognize a 1.5-meter difference in release point and adjust in that tiny instant?
Their brains began to overload.
Once Seo Ji-tae started changing hands against the same batter, the bottom of the fifth disappeared.
The American dugout was speechless.
“He’s really a switch pitcher...”
“What is this?”
Everyone he faced looked confused.
They had thought Seo Ji-tae simply threw with both hands.
Jackson grabbed his head.
“The moment my brain recognizes the upshoot, my body can’t adjust to the left-handed timing.”
Exactly.
A style that overloaded young hitters’ brains.
That was one of the greatest strengths of Seo Ji-tae’s switching.
Bottom of the sixth.
Seo Ji-tae’s upshoot continued.
The dugout tried to think of a strategy.
But there was no clear answer.
“If he throws right-handed underhand, what about using left-handed hitters?”
“Then he just switches to left-handed.”
“Ah!”
No solution appeared.
Seo Ji-tae also had strong right-handed weapons against left-handed hitters.
A breaking ball dropping low and inside caused the same problem.
Bottom of the sixth, two outs.
The American dugout grew increasingly gloomy.
The score remained tied 1 to 1.
The number two hitter, Noah Evans, stepped into the box.
“...”
The atmosphere was different from the first inning.
Seo Ji-tae looked relaxed.
Noah looked tense.
He crowded close to home plate with an extremely closed stance.
He planned to wait and react.
But when Seo Ji-tae brought out his right hand, Noah could not help becoming nervous.
Up-shoot.
The pitch rose from low to high.
Noah took two pitches.
One strike, one ball.
Then Seo Ji-tae used another right-handed pitch designed for left-handed hitters.
“!”
The pitch looked like it would hit Noah.
Then it suddenly broke away, dropping between the four and five o’clock direction.
Slurve.
“Strike!”
Two strikes, one ball.
Sweat began forming on Noah’s face.
Seo Ji-tae’s presence was becoming more intimidating with every inning.
Then Seo Ji-tae’s glove moved back to his right hand.
“Left-handed is better.”
His left-handed velocity had dropped.
But after showing the hitter completely different heights, the rising fastball remained dangerous.
Noah waited, determined to make contact.
But the pitch did not arrive with the timing he expected.
High-speed splitter.
The pitch dropped away.
His bat swung through empty space.
“Strikeout!”
Out again.
Even the third time through the order, the hitters were helpless.
“Isn’t that cheating?”
“How are we supposed to hit him if he switches hands every pitch?”
The American dugout became noisy.
The inning ended.
The sixth disappeared just as easily.
The American hitters looked defeated.
“His release point keeps changing, so my eyes can’t focus.”
They could only hope Seo Ji-tae would not return for the seventh.
But he did.
A heavy sinker induced a ground ball.
One pitch, one out.
“...Whew.”
The cleanup hitter, Jayden Hayes, stepped into the box.
The power hitter had driven in a run against Seo Ji-tae in the first inning.
