The Genius Pitcher Dad Throws for His Daughter - Chapter 58

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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 58
#58.
The rain that had fallen relentlessly for three days vanished like a lie the moment Monday arrived, revealing a clear sky.
I’d done my best to rest, shuttling between the Hotel and the Stadium.
But the respite brought by the rain left unexpected aftereffects.
“Ugh, my knees…”
“My shoulders still feel stiff…”
“Argh! The humidity is driving me crazy!”
Some players felt pain in their injured areas, others experienced sharp sensations where they’d had surgery, and the weather had turned for the worst.
August’s oppressive heat was already suffocating enough.
Though the three days of rain had lowered the temperature slightly, the improvement was negligible. The blazing sun dried the water from the ground, making walking manageable, but in exchange, the humidity rose mercilessly—sweat poured down with even the slightest movement.
Still, everyone’s faces brightened.
We’d gotten our rest, after all. With regular exercise and good meals in between, everyone definitely looked better.
Especially the Bullpen pitchers—they looked like they’d put on a bit of weight.
“Do well out there…”
“Do well, but… don’t do too well, yeah?”
“Right. Give us a chance to move up too.”
Jo Sang-hyuk, Jung Ji-hoon, and Choi Sung-hyuk spoke in turn.
These Senior Pitchers hadn’t taken the Mound for nearly a week due to the losing streak and the rain. Even Choi Sung-hyuk, who’d thrown one inning, had been waiting since Tuesday—his body must be itching to pitch.
Such is the curse of the Clutch Team.
On top of that, some of our pitchers are currently moving back and forth between the 1st Team and 2nd Team.
Specifically, once the 2nd Team Manager polishes them up nicely, they’ll be sent to the 1st Team for testing in actual games.
During this two-game losing streak, most of the pitchers who came up from the 2nd Team took the Mound to close out games, and the results were ambiguous at best.
‘They were all so nervous they couldn’t show their true abilities.’
The 1st Team and 2nd Team are literally worlds apart.
Day games versus evening games, sparse fans or empty Stands versus packed crowds, and the Stadium reverberating with amplified sounds and voices.
Naturally, the psychological and physical pressure is unavoidable.
Even players who regularly compete on the 1st Team stage experience this, so the pressure felt on the Mound isn’t easily shaken off.
It’s felt while warming up before taking the Mound, on the walk toward it, and once you’re standing there. With each pitch producing a result, even throwing a single ball carries immense pressure.
A pitcher is a player who must fully unleash their abilities in that place.
‘Me? Well… those days are behind me.’
I was thirty-seven when I retired.
I spent ten years between the 2nd Team and 1st Team in the KBO, and seven years alone in the Big League.
For me, who’d experienced both the Korean Series and the World Series, trembling on the Mound now is somewhat laughable.
‘Rather, I’m excited that I can continue playing baseball, and that it’s for my daughter.’
Still, whenever I throw a pitch, I can throw with a cool head and a burning heart—that’s who I am now.
In the end, this is something time and experience will resolve.
Well, setting that aside, what matters now is tomorrow’s appearance.
If we’d followed the original rotation, Al would’ve pitched, but the rain cancellation pushed it back. So we decided to give him extended rest to manage his condition. Since he’s a foreign player who hasn’t fully adapted to our country’s heat, we gave him a longer break this time.
Al is sitting this one out, and I’m scheduled to pitch tomorrow instead.
“Ho-jin, how are you planning to pitch to this batter?”
“Ah, looking at his recent at-bats, he’s been going for fastballs mostly. I think we can throw off his timing.”
“If he adjusts?”
“Drop it low and inside. Since you’re a right-hander, a curve on the inside corner to a right-handed batter should help you get ahead in the count easily.”
“Hmm… sounds good.”
I’m analyzing the opposing lineup together with Se-jin, who will pitch after me.
Of course, Do-bin, who’s listening intently beside us while reviewing the scouting report, is here too. Since he’s been starting as the primary catcher, he’s the senior who analyzes with pitchers every day, and his face looked genuinely happy.
“Heh heh. I’m already excited thinking about pitching with you and the senior.”
He’s already finished his own analysis and is now organizing the rest while listening to our conversation, saying tomorrow will be much easier and that he needs to put more effort into offense.
Do-bin’s hitting form has been declining lately.
He’s the senior who announced his brilliant return by hitting a home run at the plate. Since then, he’s been showing occasional quality at-bats and contributing steadily, but being in the 1st Team for an extended period for the first time, combined with the starting catcher position, seems to be wearing on him trying to excel on both offense and defense.
If he finishes this season well and then moves into the regular season starting from Spring Camp next year, I think he’ll show a much better performance than now.
Besides, the organization is paying considerable attention to him as the starting catcher, so there’s no real concern. However, considering the backup catcher situation is weak, we need a proper catcher soon, whether in the 1st or 2nd Team.
Anyway, we were in the middle of exchanging opinions for game preparation.
Buzz—!
My phone vibrated, and I wondered what it could be when I saw a name pop up clearly.
[Myung-hwan]
“Yes, hyung.”
– What are you doing?
“Analyzing the opposing team’s lineup.”
My calls with Myung-hwan have increased significantly recently.
It started as a light greeting and a bit of caution.
– Don’t overdo it, got it?
“Come on, hyung, you’re performing so well—I have to give my best as your student too.”
– Following in your master’s footsteps?
“When did I ever say that?”
By the way, the senior has been showing rejuvenated performance ever since sharing the Mound with me.
It’s hard to believe he’s thirty-two, the way he’s been performing like he did in his late twenties.
Thanks to this, Daejeon Phoenix’s record has been improving gradually, and if we hadn’t lost three games to the Unicorns, the standings would have shifted.
After the light greeting and caution, we often discuss curveballs.
Right now, Myung-hwan and I have three types of curves.
A high-speed curve, a slow curve, and a 12-6 waterfall curve.
Since our arm angles and release points are similar, the trajectories come out similarly too, but the difference is in velocity.
I can throw up to 140 km/h while Myung-hwan throws around 130 km/h.
Recently, we haven’t neglected our research on curveballs.
It’s research to find a grip that can draw new trajectories, and pitches that can fool batters.
– It’s difficult, really difficult.
“It really is tough.”
We’re researching while frequently staying in touch, but there haven’t been any real results yet.
The pitch types we’re focusing on now are different—I’m interested in the slurve, while Myung-hwan is interested in the knucklecurve.
Learning a new pitch type isn’t easy to begin with, and in my case, it consumes points, so I can’t acquire it easily.
‘If I could learn it from someone else, that would be a different story….’
Surprisingly, there aren’t many Pitchers in Korea who throw a knucklecurve.
A few Pitchers on the Dolphins throw it, so I went looking to see if I could learn it.
One of the people I approached was a Senior Pitcher, and I got rejected.
What did he say? He refused, claiming he couldn’t teach a 1st Team player while stuck in the 2nd Team. For reference, he was Kim Pil-joong, who originally played for the Clutch Team in the 1st Team and was a Senior who frequented bars.
When the Manager passing by glared at him, he reluctantly showed me his grip, but the system didn’t respond.
Instead, I found another player—a junior who spent his high school years throwing the knucklecurve.
He shared his grip and know-how with me, but the system didn’t respond, so I gave up.
‘The shortcut strategy failed.’
With this, I’ve decided to pay the points and acquire it myself, so I’ve been researching information about the slurve recently.
There’s no progress, but I think if I prepare thoroughly during the off-season, I might be able to acquire it.
“Yes, hyung. Get some rest.”
– Yeah. Pitch well tomorrow.
After finishing the call with Myung-hwan, I resumed the meeting.
The opponent we invited to Home was none other than the Gocheok Unicorns.
Whether we can bounce back depends on the results of this three-game series.
“Come on! Let’s shout fighting loud!”
“Fighting!”
Despite it being Monday, everyone’s enthusiastic training voices echoed through Sajik Baseball Stadium.
Everyone was sweating hard to create a different week from last week.
* * *
The Gocheok Unicorns.
Originally positioned as a parent company’s team, they naturally became a single independent organization when they withdrew from the baseball market.
However, after being acquired by a company, they began receiving investment from a parent company again and have been gradually developing.
The team that sustained itself as an independent organization by consistently bringing in prospects, developing them, and selling them to other teams, now uses those prospects themselves and is leading a performance turnaround.
This turnaround began this year, and from next year or the year after, the organization brought in an excellent rebuilding-focused Manager to prepare for serious autumn baseball competition.
The one holding the baton is a middle-aged man named Jin Young-ha.
As a player, he was a college graduate who never even made it to the Minor League. However, upon graduating, he quickly entered coaching training, and the former Catcher gained recognition rapidly because of his excellence in developing Catchers.
Just looking at the Gocheok Unicorns’ Catcher roster, it’s remarkably among the top tier among the ten teams.
Not only the starting Catcher but even the backup Catcher could secure a starting position if they went to another team, and the third Catcher is also at a level of alternating between starter and backup at other teams.
However, this evaluation came solely from defense, and their offense was comparable to other teams.
Manager Jin Young-ha was weak in hitting, and for three years now, he’s been building the team by leaving hitting to the coaching staff while focusing on defense.
A team with decent defense but weak hitting.
Today, the Gocheok Unicorns’ concerns could only deepen.
“So… among Kang Ho-jin, Kim Se-jin, and Choi Jin-ha, which Pitcher can we contain?”
Everyone hesitated at the Manager’s question, looking troubled, before speaking up.
“Everyone except Kang Ho-jin….”
“Kim Se-jin should be ruled out too.”
“Choi Jin-ha might be manageable….”
Everyone shared the same thought.
While they considered Choi Jin-ha the easiest opponent, they couldn’t easily predict the outcomes of the other two matchups.
Just looking at recent performance, Kang Ho-jin and Kim Se-jin had become winning pitchers, but Choi Jin-ha had taken a loss, and strategies to counter him were already circulating.
Assuming at minimum a 2-1 record, the Gocheok Unicorns found themselves in a position where they had to focus on one of the two games pitched by Kang Ho-jin and Kim Se-jin.
“We’ll target Kang Ho-jin. A young viper fresh from the nest would be easier than an old serpent.”
Rather than a veteran who had spent twelve years on the Baseball Field, targeting a rookie pitcher who had just debuted was the obvious choice.
“Curveballs. We’ll hunt nothing but curveballs.”
Since his recent curveball usage rate exceeded 70%, they selected it as their focus, and they began preparing for the game by watching as much footage as possible of Kang Ho-jin throwing curveballs.
And then came the long-awaited game day.
Kang Ho-jin stirred in bed, muttering to himself.
“Hmm… my fingers feel numb for some reason….”
After waking up, I pressed my fingers repeatedly, sensing that my sensation felt oddly dull.

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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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