The Genius Pitcher Dad Throws for His Daughter - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 105
#105.
To be honest, I was angry at first.
For me, baseball is a sport I play to save my Daughter.
It’s a sport with clear winners and losers, and for me, victory is also for my Daughter.
Above all, to be selected as Player of the Game, I need to be the winning pitcher—the odds are considerably higher that way. For that reason, I’ve been gradually delaying my Daughter’s recovery, pushing my own growth to increase my chances of becoming the winning pitcher, even by a small margin.
Today, I also worked hard to become the winning pitcher, and as a result, I achieved nine innings without allowing a run, yet I still didn’t become the winning pitcher.
I didn’t get Player of the Game, and I didn’t earn any points either—I was frustrated in every way.
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
Kim Jin-ho apologized to me.
His face showed genuine frustration and remorse.
That wasn’t enough—he went to a corner of the Locker Room where the other seniors were digging, and started digging alongside them.
“Sigh…”
At this rate, the Sajik Baseball Stadium would sink underground soon.
Faced with this situation, even I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh, and instead of staying angry, I just let it go.
Seven straight wins followed by four straight losses.
The Locker Room’s atmosphere could only grow more depressed, and we headed out on our road trip as we were.
Our destination was Gwangju.
* * *
We arrived in Gwangju just past 2 AM.
Even though we left in a hurry after a game that went into extra innings, it was still this late.
The route between Busan and Gwangju could only be traveled by car at that time.
Even if the KTX opens next year in 2028, it’s difficult to catch a train that matches when the team finishes playing.
In the end, we had no choice but to continue taking the bus, and despite feeling exhausted from the grueling travel and needing rest, I still hadn’t fallen asleep and picked up a beer can.
Glug, glug.
A tremendous amount of beer flowed down my throat in one go.
Though the carbonation should have cleared my chest, my stomach still felt only stuffy.
This was due not only to the team’s performance, but also to the depressed team atmosphere.
‘Did we really run without any brakes?’
I felt that Manager Bong Jun-sik’s calculations had gone wrong.
Starting from the season opener and the road trip to Changwon, we went on a winning streak, then swept through the consecutive away games that followed.
Manager Bong Jun-sik got a bit greedy too, and that’s how we achieved seven straight wins.
The problem came after that.
Then came consecutive losses.
And it wasn’t the starting pitchers who collapsed—it was entirely the Bullpen.
‘It’s… my fault.’
Manager Bong Jun-sik believed it was his own mistake.
He concluded that the Clutch Team had wavered due to fatigue caused by not giving them proper rest during the winning streak.
No matter how much the four of them split innings and take the mound individually, a Bullpen pitcher waits in the Bullpen, warming up, never knowing when they’ll be called to pitch in any given game.
Even if there’s still physical stamina early in the season, it’s natural to grow mentally exhausted.
‘And there’s something else I forgot about too.’
It wasn’t anything complicated—the team was pursuing a rebuild this season, not a championship run. The goal was to complete the team’s construction from last year through this year, not to charge ahead mindlessly like this.
As evidence, of the thirteen pitchers on the roster, four had yet to take the Mound even after eleven games since the season started.
That didn’t align with the rebuild objective.
So Manager Bong Jun-sik’s thoughts, which had been swirling moments before, finally crystallized.
‘I think I need to give them a day off.’
If I had them set down the ball completely and just watch the game, they’d recover both physically and mentally.
And the next day.
“Kim Jin-ho, Jung Ji-hoon, Jo Sang-hyuk, Choi Sung-hyuk. You four are sitting out today. Don’t even touch a ball—just rest.”
At Manager Bong Jun-sik’s words, the four of them stared at him as if the world were collapsing.
“…It’s over.”
“Looks like we’re headed to the 2nd Team.”
“Sigh….”
Manager Bong Jun-sik left before they could even respond, and so they found themselves sitting on the Bench while everyone else was warming up on the Ground.
They looked like they’d lost all will and desire to live.
* * *
“Hey, bro. What kind of day is this?”
Kevin, who was preparing for his starting appearance on the Mound, asks me. Where his finger points, our Clutch Team’s sign holders were staring blankly at the Ground. They weren’t doing anything at all—just staring vacantly.
“If this place happens to be a zombie outbreak zone, give me a heads-up. I don’t want to spread the virus to my family.”
Kevin passes by them with a slightly disgusted expression, as if his joke were deadly serious, and begins his warm-up. Meck, preparing for tomorrow’s appearance, launches into opponent analysis with Kevin with various observations.
Watching the two foreigners doing this from quite a distance away, I couldn’t help but laugh.
The seniors, unaware they were being treated like zombies, had their eyes moving left and right following the ball as Han Seok-do and Choi Ji-ho threw it back and forth right in front of the Dugout.
In the meantime, I left the Dugout and went with Se-jin to the Gwangju Elephants Dugout.
“Oh! Se-jin, hello!”
“Nice to see you!”
Perhaps because Se-jin was from the National Team, greetings came immediately from the opposing Dugout.
I also bowed my head in greeting to the seniors in the opposing team’s Dugout, and just then, someone I’d been wanting to see appeared.
“Hey, you two doing well?”
It was Ga Jin-heo, the franchise star and Pitcher of the Gwangju Elephants.
I’d only seen Se-jin briefly during Media Day, but for me, skipping the exhibition games meant it had been a long time since the first Spring Camp.
“Jin-heo, thank you. I’m using it well thanks to you.”
“Ha… you’re a scary guy.”
Jin-heo looks at me as if I truly terrify him.
Just three months after teaching me the slider, I’m throwing it at a level of complete mastery that anyone would recognize.
I can’t manage the sweeper and high-velocity slider yet, but at least I can show vertical and horizontal movement and have no problem facing batters.
“So hyung, how do you throw the high-velocity slider and sweeper?”
“Get outta here, you punk! You scare me!”
Jin-heo suddenly uses dialect and tries to move away from me.
He’s genuinely trying to distance himself, as if truly frightened. And Se-jin also takes a small step back.
“Se-jin?”
At my call, he takes another step back.
His expression looks tired, as if he’s staring at some kind of monster.
“What else are you trying to add here?”
“Yeah. That should be enough. It already looks sufficient as is.”
Well, to be fair, my seniors have a point.
Three games, two wins, no losses, twenty-seven innings without a run, thirty-four strikeouts, two walks.
I’m currently the pitcher who has thrown the most innings in the league and is racking up the most strikeouts.
Yet I’m still hungry.
Grrrrowl—!
Ah. I’m genuinely hungry too, but the real issue is that my appetite for additional pitches is insatiable.
I’m determined to become the winning pitcher on the Mound by any means necessary, and that’s the only way I can reliably earn points.
“What, are you trying to become some kind of jack-of-all-trades pitcher?”
“How many do you have now? Isn’t it five pitch types excluding the four-seam? And if you break it down more finely, there are even more?”
Well, considering how the trajectory changes depending on how I grip the ball, you could say I throw about a dozen different pitches.
But there’s one thing I can say for certain: among all of them, there isn’t a single pitch I can confidently call entirely my own, or that I can throw with complete mastery.
Honestly, I sometimes throw the curveball with poor form, but I’ve just been lucky enough that the batter’s bat has missed it every time.
“I’ll learn them all for now. If my curveball suddenly stops working one day, I’ll just throw a different pitch.”
Jin-heo nods in agreement with what I’m saying, but it’s clear he has no intention of teaching me easily.
“I don’t know, kid. Just focus on throwing the vertical and horizontal movements well first. Sometimes it just loses its grip.”
“You’re truly a master. You see it right away.”
“That’s why. Grip the ball properly before you ‘snap’ it. It looks like the rotation isn’t quite there.”
Despite his reluctance, Jin-heo teaches me the essence of the slider once more.
Thanks to him, I’ve refreshed my memory of Jin-heo’s signature slider, and he said that once my hands get more comfortable with it, we’ll move to the next level, so I should call it a day.
“Yes, Master. Thank you for teaching me today as well.”
“Alright.”
Jin-heo smiles as he speaks.
We exchange light greetings and chat about what we’ve been up to, and finally he gestures to mime eating.
“Let’s grab food after the game. You too, Se-jin.”
“Yeah, let’s eat today. I’m pitching on Saturday too.”
“Got it.”
By the way, when Se-jin pitches, Jin-heo also takes the Mound.
It’s a matchup between teammates from the class of ’93, and a duel between two former National Team players. The fact that about half of Thursday’s tickets sold out shows how the longtime fans are coming out to the Baseball Stadium.
After saying goodbye to Jin-heo, Se-jin asks me on the way back to the Dugout.
“Why don’t you try learning a modified fastball instead?”
His words bring something to mind.
“You mean a two-seam or a cutter, right?”
“Yeah, most of your pitches are breaking balls used for strikeouts anyway. Why not learn a two-seam to induce ground balls while you’re at it?”
“That’s not a bad option either.”
To be honest, it’s actually quite a solid choice.
I may look like an aggressive pitcher who’s churning out strikeouts left and right, but before I returned to the past, I was actually a ground ball pitcher who induced ground outs.
I did pick up strikeouts, of course, but to survive in a monster-infested Big League, I couldn’t rely solely on strikeouts—I needed to induce ground balls strategically as well.
‘The problem was, even back then, I lacked some talent with the two-seam fastball and cutter.’
How should I put it? That was exactly it.
In the Minor League or KBO, they work fine, but in the Big League, the moment those monsters read you, the ball disappears beyond the fence.
That assessment was spot-on.
Perhaps that’s why, even now, my interest in the two-seam fastball and cutter remains low.
And there’s an even bigger reason for it.
‘There’s simply no pitcher on the team who throws the two-seam fastball, sinker, or cutter well.’
If there were, I’d gladly invest points to learn from them.
Of course, there are players on the team who throw the cutter and two-seam fastball. So when I casually asked if they could teach me, the two of them showed me their grips.
– You can acquire Mack Skitch’s Cutter (E) by consuming points.
– You can acquire Kim Jin-ho’s Two-Seam Fastball (E) by consuming points.
Even if I learned them, they’d consume an astronomical amount of points to use properly, so I passed.
“If you’re struggling with the two-seam fastball, ask the Manager.”
“Huh?”
At my question, Se-jin smiles knowingly.
“Our Manager used to pitch in the Bullpen back in the day because he threw an absolutely incredible two-seam fastball.”
“Oh….”
It seemed I’d found a new mentor in a place I never expected.

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