Chapter 50, I Can Do It
He survived.
Five scoreless innings.
Kim Byeong-hee clenched both fists.
He had accomplished it after exactly eighty pitches.
During the inning, Manager Rodriguez had walked onto the mound and said it might be time to change pitchers.
At that moment, Kim Byeong-hee had said only one thing.
It was the only English he could remember.
He felt that if he tried to say I can keep pitching through an interpreter, his determination would lose its strength.
“I can do...”
“What did you say?”
The interpreter leaned closer, asking him to repeat it.
“I can do...”
The interpreter asked again.
Then Manager Rodriguez said,
“Excuse me?”
Only then did Kim Byeong-hee realize something.
He was speaking broken Konglish.
“I can do it!”
He shouted again with more strength.
Yoon Jae-jun lightly tapped his shoulder with his catcher’s mitt.
As if telling him to try.
As if telling him that he believed in him.
“I can do it. I can do it!”
Kim Byeong-hee kept repeating the words like a spell.
Manager Rodriguez burst into hearty laughter.
Then he said something to the interpreter.
“You can do it.”
“Manager says you can do it.”
The interpreter followed Manager Rodriguez back to the bench.
“That’s right, senior. You can do it! Fighting!”
Yoon Jae-jun returned to his position.
Kim Byeong-hee felt his blood boiling.
Adrenaline spread throughout his body.
Right.
I can do it.
The game ended more simply than expected.
1-0.
It had been a fierce pitchers’ duel.
I finished one-for-four with one home run.
Of course, games like this happened sometimes.
At least I had driven in the winning run.
I did not drink alcohol, but this felt like a day when having one would have been fine.
Except for one thing.
Why was everyone so desperate to emphasize me?
It was not exactly burdensome.
But I was starting to worry that the team was becoming too dependent on a single individual.
“You were traded here, then produced a surprise five scoreless innings and became the winning pitcher. Please tell us how you feel!”
“Y, yes. I’m shocked too, sir. I didn’t think I was ready yet, but I somehow got such a great win. My whole body is still shaking, sir.”
Why was he using that clipped military speaking style during the official player-of-the-game interview?
Kim Byeong-hee’s personality was so strong that I finally decided to simply accept it.
He had definitely been normal before the trade...
Maybe it was some kind of personality or routine he had developed to survive...
“Yes. With this victory, the Oceans have become the first team to reach seventeen wins. This was an unexpected performance. What did you talk about with Manager Rodriguez during the fifth inning?”
“Um... I told him I could do it, sir.”
“The manager laughed very loudly. The camera even caught him smiling from the bench afterward.”
“I said, ‘I can do.’ I mean, I spread the spirit of ‘I can do it,’ sir. I strongly appealed that I could do it.”
“Pardon?”
The announcer sounded confused.
Yoon Jae-jun clicked his tongue while watching the interview with me.
“He was perfectly normal on the mound. Why is he acting like that over there?”
I stared at Yoon Jae-jun.
At least Kim Byeong-hee was more normal than the man who once said during an interview, After joining Choi Seong School, my era of success began.
I silently sighed.
“Yes... I see. Lastly, is there anyone you would like to share this victory with? You can simply tell us who you are most thankful to.”
It was a standard question for a player who had suddenly started performing well.
Up to this point, the interview had been completely normal.
Obviously he should mention his parents.
I had done the same.
Just as I thought that...
“There’s someone I want to mention, sir. That person is...”
He suddenly paused.
For about five seconds.
It became long enough that I started worrying he might say, We’ll reveal it after a one-minute commercial break.
“I want to express endless gratitude and affection toward Master Choi Seong, sir. If Master hadn’t been there, I really would’ve been nothing...”
I immediately turned off the locker room television.
Complaints came from everywhere.
“Hey, why?”
“It’s funny! Turn it back on, Seong!”
Everyone looked at me with amused expressions.
I had no choice but to turn it back on.
“Honestly, I’m even more thankful to him than my parents, sir. My parents gave birth to me, but Master is the one who gave those parents something to be happy about. I was stuck in an awkward position and couldn’t accomplish anything, sir. Without Master, I probably would’ve been released this year and opened a baseball academy. I really... really thank him, sir.”
The locker room, which had been full of laughter, instantly became quiet.
More than his parents...
I had not really taught him anything incredible.
I had simply shown him my fastball grip.
He had been the one who used it successfully.
Several players’ eyes became red.
“That idiot must’ve suffered a lot.”
“Looks like he learned something, though. He pitched great today. I swear, his pitches looked alive.”
I simply closed my eyes.
But inside my heart, I smiled slightly.
It felt like I had saved someone.
The Suwon Rangers had no choice but to seriously think about the situation.
The Busan Oceans were now 17 wins, 1 tie, and 4 losses.
Their unstoppable march continued.
“Choi Seong...”
Wright was already one of the top foreign starting pitchers in Korea this year.
They had believed they could win during the Oceans’ fifth-starter game, but unexpectedly, the opposing pitching staff had been far too strong.
The Busan Oceans’ current momentum was overwhelming.
Meanwhile, their own results were miserable.
8 wins, 14 losses.
They still had not reached ten wins.
“Do we have Choi Seong’s data?”
“As you know, he’s a pitcher with twenty-three scoreless innings and only one earned run...”
In other words, there was not enough useful data.
The Suwon Rangers manager sighed.
Of course, this was not the analytics team’s fault.
Choi Seong was simply so dominant that no useful weakness appeared.
“Then include his high school data and analyze that too. He does give up hits occasionally.”
He had allowed both walks and hits.
The real problem was that Choi Seong became terrifying whenever runners entered scoring position.
Looking at it that way, the last-place Seoul Magicians had practically created a miracle when they scored one run on consecutive hits and ended his scoreless-inning streak.
“Yes. We already looked at those numbers. They’re... pretty incredible.”
“Why?”
Everyone already knew he was incredible.
Every team had wanted to select him first in the draft.
But when they combined his professional and high school pitching numbers, the manager could only sigh.
“His ERA was below 1.00 in high school too? It was even lower than his professional ERA?”
His head started aching.
“We still analyzed detailed numbers such as hits allowed. Right-handed batters hit .097 against him.”
A batting average below .100.
That meant if one hundred right-handed batters faced him, only 9.7 of them would produce hits.
“Left-handed hitters?”
“A little higher. Around .150.”
“Good. Then we’ll use left-handed hitters everywhere. From one through nine, every batter will be left-handed. Ah, except our cleanup hitter. Let’s win this one. We can win.”
Fortunately, the Suwon Rangers had plenty of left-handed hitters.
“We’ll try it.”
Hitters one through three were already left-handed.
The cleanup hitter was right-handed.
“What about his weakness as a hitter?”
“He seems to struggle more against unusual arm angles, sidearm and submarine pitchers.”
Indeed, during the previous game, except for his home run in the first at-bat, he had failed to produce another hit.
Once their starter completed five innings, they removed him immediately.
After that, they sent sidearm and submarine pitchers to face Choi Seong as one-point specialists.
It had been fairly effective.
A monster with an on-base percentage above .500 had gone only one-for-four.
“That is his only weakness. He’s hitting .370 against sidearm pitchers and .330 against submarine pitchers.”
“You’re calling that a weakness?”
“Y, yes.”
The manager sighed quietly.
Normally, a hitter batting like that would call those numbers strengths.
But against Choi Seong, those numbers somehow became weaknesses.
“Prepare for him properly. How does he do against three-quarter pitchers?”
“Ah, he hits .350 against three-quarter deliveries.”
“Then our foreign starter might actually be able to contain him.”
Fortunately, their foreign pitcher used a three-quarter arm slot.
The anti-Choi Seong plan.
Whether it would work remained to be seen.
The manager thought deeply, then added,
“Tell our hitters to crowd the strike zone as much as possible. They don’t even need to hit. Just stay close.”
“Why?”
“That’ll make him feel pressure when pitching inside. He’s a rookie. Something like that should scare him.”
No matter how good the hardware was, software could collapse quickly.
That had always been the Suwon Rangers manager’s belief.
Following the manager’s instructions, the Rangers filled their lineup with left-handed hitters.
Batters one through five were fine.
But hitters six through nine were rookies or backups.
“The manager has finally lost his mind.”
“He said crowd the strike zone as much as possible.”
“He’s doing this because of Choi Seong, right? Is he basically telling us to get on base even if we get hit?”
Complaints filled the locker room.
Still, everyone knew there was no other choice.
Twenty-three innings, one earned run.
He was already a monster.
There was real fear that they simply could not score against such a pitcher.
“Hey. Even he has to give up a bunch of runs eventually. Just go out there and hit. I’ll buy you beef afterward.”
The cleanup hitter and team captain instantly silenced everyone.
Choi Seong was intimidating.
But in the end, he was still human.
They believed they could win.
“Play ball!”
Before the game, Choi Seong received a ten-million-won prize for becoming the first pitcher to reach ten home runs.
He had already earned thirty million won in bonuses.
With a simple click, he had received the annual salary of an average young office worker.
And now the game began.
The Suwon Rangers leadoff hitter bit his lip and positioned himself as close to the batter’s box line as possible.
Watching someone enjoy such a smooth life made his stomach twist.
As he thought about getting on base somehow, a pitch came inside.
Stay as close as possible...
The pitch had a slider-like path.
He instinctively knew he would not be able to hit it.
The ball seemed to be heading directly toward the strike zone while threatening his forearm.
He closed his eyes.
“Agh!”
A short scream escaped him.
The pitch struck his forearm while his arm was hanging over the strike zone.
He dramatically collapsed to the ground.
Even with an arm guard, tremendous pain spread through him.
“Umpire! He put his own body into the strike zone!”
Yoon Jae-jun shouted indignantly.
The umpire had ruled it a hit-by-pitch.
Even the leadoff hitter knew the catcher was right.
He had intentionally moved into the pitch.
But getting on base mattered more.
So did the team’s victory.
“What did you say, bastard?”
Ignoring the pain, he jumped up and shoved Yoon Jae-jun.
A bench-clearing confrontation began on the very first pitch of the top of the first.
Choi Seong calmly stepped between Yoon Jae-jun and the leadoff hitter.
“Just let him go. Apparently he really wants first base.”
“But still...”
“It doesn’t matter whether he gets on base or not.”
The leadoff hitter clenched his teeth at Choi Seong’s carefree words.
Choi Seong was completely looking down on his team.
He wanted to say something more.
But he immediately closed his mouth.
Choi Seong was staring him up and down with terrifying eyes.
Those were no longer the eyes of a rookie.
