The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 109

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 109
The morning of the championship finals.
In the Director’s Office of the Glendale Desert Dogs.
Harry Miller gazed down at the report laid across his desk.
More precisely, at Soo-ho’s statistics sheet, unable to suppress a satisfied smile.
‘No matter how many times I look at it, it’s simply remarkable.’
Yesterday’s semifinal was nothing short of a one-man show orchestrated by Soo-ho.
The cycle hit was certainly a magnificent achievement, but what truly captured Harry’s attention as manager was the defense.
A defensive range and instinct so expansive that even professional shortstops were left speechless.
Honestly, it had been a gamble bordering on recklessness.
To deploy an outfielder—and in the most critical short-series matchup no less—as a shortstop, the commander of the infield.
Had it failed, the decision would have left a blemish on his own managerial career.
But Soo-ho had pulled it off with flair.
No, he’d exceeded all expectations.
‘Thanks to him, my stock has risen as well.’
A brilliant strategist who had executed an unconventional tactic flawlessly.
Interview requests were pouring in from all directions.
All of this was thanks to this blessing of a player, Soo-ho.
If he could, Harry would have wrapped him up and brought him along to whatever team he’d be managing next.
Harry hummed contentedly and took a sip of his coffee.
But that composure didn’t last long.
The moment his eyes fell upon another stack of documents in the corner of his desk, his brow furrowed.
The championship opponent was the Salt River Rafters.
And the cornerstone of that team, the league’s greatest monster.
‘Victor Moretti.’
A first-round pick the Yankees had earmarked as their next ace.
Harry exhaled a deep sigh.
To be honest, the Desert Dogs were at an objective disadvantage in overall strength.
Or more bluntly, they were struggling to contend with a single player: Victor Moretti.
‘Soo-ho did defeat him in the league and in the All-Star Game, but….’
Could he do it again today?
This was the championship finals, the ultimate test of short-series baseball.
‘The unconventional tactics have already been revealed. The opponent has perfect data on his abilities.’
Above all, the opponent’s resolve was razor-sharp.
According to the rumors circulating.
Upon hearing that Soo-ho had hit for the cycle, Victor had even conducted additional bullpen sessions.
‘So to Victor, Soo-ho must be a thorn in his side that he absolutely must crush.’
The thief who had stolen his All-Star Game MVP trophy.
‘Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.’
Because a professional player lives and breathes through competitive fire.
‘Regardless, Victor won’t simply pitch to win today.’
He’ll take the mound with the intention of erasing Soo-ho from the baseball field entirely.
‘If we’re competing purely on skill alone, I can’t win.’
I have to acknowledge what’s true.
No matter what anyone says, Victor is still a prospect for the Major League.
But what about Soo-ho?
‘Of course he’s brilliant.’
His genius-level instincts and baseball intelligence are unparalleled.
But the weight class difference between a minor leaguer and a major leaguer was undeniably real.
Can a fox outwit a charging elephant that’s hell-bent on trampling it?
‘Just like in the Major League, the World Series champion is ultimately the victor.’
Whether it’s the regular season or the playoffs, it doesn’t matter.
In the end, whoever wins today is the ultimate victor.
‘That’s what Victor wants.’
And it was true that the opponent had the advantage.
So how could I get closer to victory?
‘The biggest problem is momentum.’
Baseball is a battle of momentum.
Right now, the Desert Dogs’ momentum pierces the heavens.
And at the center of it all is naturally Soo-ho.
My teammates trust and follow Soo-ho with blind faith, believing he’ll deliver something special.
‘But when I think about the opposite scenario, that’s the problem.’
What if Soo-ho crumbles?
If the team’s spiritual pillar, Soo-ho, gets struck out by the massive wall that is Victor, or shows himself being thoroughly dominated by sheer power.
It means the entire team could collapse like a sandcastle in an instant.
‘So ultimately, the key player is Soo-ho.’
If Soo-ho survives, the team survives.
Harry felt a throbbing pressure in his head and pressed his temples firmly.
Victor Moretti will undoubtedly come at Soo-ho with lethal intent today.
Can Soo-ho endure that vicious onslaught?
Merely enduring wouldn’t be enough—he had to defeat his opponent.
‘Sending him out as the leadoff batter like always….’
Harry hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
‘That’s not good.’
A leadoff batter is literally the first to charge into the heart of enemy territory.
Against such a player, would Victor, with his blood boiling, merely test the waters?
‘Absolutely not.’
Instead, from the very first pitch of the top of the first inning, he’d pour all his power into crushing him down.
If Soo-ho were to helplessly back away from a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball there?
The fallout wouldn’t end with just one out.
The entire team’s morale was crumbling, and there was a significant risk that Victor’s momentum would spiral into an uncontrollable frenzy.
But then the corners of Harry’s mouth curled upward.
An excellent strategy had just occurred to him.
‘But what if I do the opposite… and place Soo-ho a bit further down in the order?’
The answer had crystallized.
Without hesitation, Harry scribbled his pen across the lineup card.
And gazing at the completed roster, he wore a satisfied smile.
In baseball, tactics are always dressed up in the language of the field, but sometimes they’re decided by a single sheet of paper.
“Victor. Today, you won’t be able to pitch like yourself.”
1. Casey Meyer (3B)
2. Mark Williams 1B
3. Oh Soo-ho SS
.
.
.
Today, Soo-ho wouldn’t be dominating the ground as the team’s vanguard.
Instead, he would become the problem-solver who appears at the most critical moment.
The meaning of this arrangement was crystal clear.
‘Victor will be most wary of Soo-ho. In the end, to overcome Soo-ho, he might even pace himself against the batters ahead of him.’
Even for a pitcher, there’s a finite reserve of stamina and concentration.
No matter how monstrous Victor is, he can’t throw at full power for all nine innings.
His mind would be consumed entirely by the three characters of ‘Oh Soo-ho’.
‘If that’s the case, he’ll try to conserve his strength to face Soo-ho, and there’s a high probability he’ll unconsciously hold back against the batters before him.’
Of course, the opposing team might catch on to this.
But it didn’t matter.
‘Can you keep that up for all nine innings?’
Casey and Mark would simply exploit that opening.
‘Ha. This is indeed convenient.’
Harry leaned back deeply into his chair.
Having a superstar-caliber player on his own team in the Arizona Fall League.
Moreover, this player living up to his five-tool talent—whether it’s speed, hitting, or defense.
The fact that he was a versatile asset who could deliver wherever he was placed lightened the weight on Harry’s shoulders.
Thanks to this, he could execute such unconventional tactics to catch the opponent off guard, and gain the upper hand in the mind games before the game even started.
‘Well, Victor. Will things really unfold according to the scenario you’ve prepared?’
Harry gazed at the stadium with a composed gleam in his eyes.
The opposition still had no idea.
That the monster they would have to face today was waiting in a slightly different guise.
* * *
Two hours before the game started.
In the Salt River Rafters’ Locker Room.
Victor Moretti glanced at the lineup card the coach had posted on the wall.
His focus was singular.
Soo-ho, the Desert Dogs’ leadoff batter.
‘I’ll shut him down the moment he steps up.’
He’d run countless simulations since last night.
This time, he wouldn’t suffer an easy defeat.
This time, he would be the victor.
But then.
“…?”
Victor’s jaw dropped wide open.
The name in the leadoff spot wasn’t Soo-ho.
‘Casey Meyer?’
Soo-ho’s name was buried two slots lower, in the third position.
‘What’s this?’
Victor was utterly baffled.
Had he hidden in the back to avoid a beating?
Victor shook his head immediately.
‘No. That can’t be it.’
Hadn’t he experienced it during the All-Star Game?
That man who didn’t bat an eye before his overwhelming power, yet relentlessly exploited every weakness to seize the MVP.
There was no way he’d suddenly grown timid and hidden himself.
Then the intention was obvious.
‘If the leadoff and second batters get on base and set the table, he’ll feast on it.’
In other words, it was a declaration of confidence—that he could deliver even with runners in scoring position against me.
‘Interesting.’
Contrary to his thoughts, the baseball in Victor’s grip creaked, the leather twisting audibly.
It wasn’t fear that gripped him, but rather that attitude of using him so thoroughly that provoked him even more.
‘Fine. Go ahead and try.’
Victor’s eyes gleamed with a predatory sharpness.
‘There won’t be a single baserunner ahead of you.’
By the time he stepped into the third batter’s box, the bases would already be cleared—either two outs or the inning would be over.
Victor stared at the lineup card, rekindling his resolve once more.
* * *
Meanwhile.
The Desert Dogs’ Locker Room also had the lineup card posted by the coach.
The players instinctively gathered before the paper, and immediately murmurs erupted from various corners.
“Huh? Soo-ho’s batting third?”
“Not leadoff?”
The players’ eyes widened in surprise.
Their gazes all converged on Soo-ho at once.
Of course, there was no reason Soo-ho couldn’t take the third batting spot—the heart of the cleanup trio.
Accuracy, power hitting, clutch ability.
He lacked nothing in any of these.
But the players’ confusion stemmed from something else entirely.
‘Our team’s winning formula is broken.’
Throughout the Arizona Fall League, the Desert Dogs’ victory pattern had been elegantly simple.
From the first inning, Soo-ho would lead off, shake the opposing pitcher, score runs, and seize the momentum.
Riding that wave, the remaining batters would exploit the advantage with ease.
Thanks to this infallible formula, they’d climbed this far—yet in the most crucial championship game, that framework had been dismantled.
Similarly, after reviewing the lineup, Soo-ho, Mark, and Casey returned to the front of the locker room and sat side by side in their chairs.
A peculiar tension hung between the three of them.
Mark was the first to speak.
He tilted his head, arms crossed.
“The Manager’s intention. Obvious, right?”
Casey nodded in agreement, picking up where Mark left off.
“Yeah. Victor’s going to target Soo-ho, so the Manager pulled him back in the order. It’s about dispersing Victor’s focus away from us.”
“Which means more opportunities come our way.”
Both spoke with feigned composure, yet a subtle unease threaded through their voices.
Soo-ho, meanwhile, said nothing, absently fidgeting with his bat.
Honestly, was this really a sound move?
I understood Harry’s calculation, but baseball doesn’t always follow theory.
“There seem to be far too many elements that could backfire.”
First, there was the matter of rhythm.
A baseball player is a creature of routine.
The leadoff batter and the cleanup hitter prepare differently from the ground up.
An abrupt positional change could disrupt a player’s biorhythm and introduce subtle fractures in their batting sense.
Consequently, not only would my destructive power be halved, but the team’s momentum could cool from the very start.
“That reasoning is sound, but I think there’s another intention mixed in.”
Soo-ho wasn’t the type to raise his voice.
Yet strangely, whenever he quietly reached a conclusion, those around him followed.
In team sports, the most formidable player wasn’t necessarily the most skilled—it was the one who made decisions for everyone else.
That’s why both their eyes snapped open at his words.
“What?”
Soo-ho answered calmly, continuing his thought.
“Does the opponent not know? No. Victor and everyone else will understand what this batting order means.”
Both nodded.
Soo-ho pressed on.
“So Victor will likely go all-out against you as well. To prove that clever tactics are useless, he’ll try to crush us from the start.”
Mark asked, worry creeping into his tone.
“Then isn’t the Manager’s intention flawed? If we lose our nerve from the beginning, the whole plan falls apart.”
“That’s not it. Because no matter how strong Victor is, he can’t throw at full power on every single pitch whenever batters like us step up to the plate, from first to third in the order.”
Exactly.
This was the true trap that Harry had orchestrated.
A pitcher must conserve energy and distribute his focus across nine innings, adjusting his intensity based on each batter.
But the Desert Dogs’ top three batters gave him no such luxury.
Casey Meyer batting first, Mark Williams batting second, Soo-ho batting third.
Not a single batter in the order could be overlooked.
Victor found himself trapped in a hellish dilemma.
Hold back against the earlier batters to save energy for Soo-ho?
Then Casey and Mark would seize that opening and unleash extra-base hits.
Or pour everything into shutting down the earlier batters instead?
Then when Soo-ho stepped into the batter’s box—the one he needed to fear most—the probability of his velocity dropping or throwing a wild pitch skyrocketed.
And in the cleanup spot, fifth, or lower in the order, hits could still come through. That was baseball.
Each time, Victor would have to give his all to prevent runs from scoring.
So the manager’s intent was crystal clear.
Even if they had to concede the early momentum battle.
The calculation was to push Victor’s stamina and mental fortitude to their absolute limits, then break him down in the later innings or at the crucial moment.
And this cruel tactic was only possible because of one essential condition.
Because Soo-ho was holding the line.
A batter who could instill fear in the opposition.
A presence that complicated a pitcher’s thinking just by stepping into the batter’s box, forcing him to unleash his full power.
It was only possible because Soo-ho—the undeniable core—anchored the center.
“…Ha. Now that you mention it, that’s right. So if we take it easy, we just need to drain his stamina completely, right?”
“Then it’d be even easier.”
Mark nodded in understanding, then looked at Soo-ho with worried eyes.
“You’ll be uncomfortable batting third, and your routine will be thrown off. Can you still do it?”
At that, Soo-ho let out a small laugh and answered.
“Yeah. Even if I can’t do it well, I have to.”
My eyes sank deep with resolve.
Already, yesterday’s cycle had sent my value skyrocketing.
The scouts’ reports would be glowing, and the Dodgers’ treatment of me would have changed.
But.
‘If I seize the championship here.’
The story becomes something else entirely.
Add a team championship to personal glory, and that treatment would exceed imagination.
Money, honor, records, and a trophy.
When opportunity knocks, I need to devour everything laid before me.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————