The Genius Pitcher Dad Throws for His Daughter - Chapter 59

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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 59
#59.
The roar that filled Sajik Baseball Stadium gradually subsided.
Walking toward the Mound, I slowly opened and closed my hand, keeping it loose.
‘…That’s strange.’
My physical condition was certainly not poor.
Aside from the sensation I felt in my hand when I woke this morning, there were no other issues. I’d eaten a proper breakfast, and there were no problems when I ran to warm up.
I’d eaten a moderate snack mid-morning, and I’d prepared my pre-game meal well.
Still, to be safe, I reported it to the Manager and Coach.
“Let’s get to the Hospital right away.”
I went to the Hospital just in case, but the doctors found nothing wrong.
“There’s no immediate problem, but without a CT or MRI scan, we can’t know for certain.”
Based on the doctor’s assessment, I left the Hospital.
There was no immediate serious issue.
‘But is it a problem?’
A slight loss of sensation in my fingers ultimately meant my control could deteriorate.
Knowing this, the Manager requested I throw in the Bullpen as soon as I arrived.
Whoosh—!
When I threw the ball, it felt surprisingly fine.
“Hmm… There doesn’t seem to be a problem…”
When I threw five pitches of each type, there were no issues.
My fastball had good weight, my changeup still looked decent when mixed in properly, my splitter dropped exactly as I’d learned, and my curveball moved just as Myung-hwan and I had been researching.
Moreover, once I threw from the Mound, the strange sensation in my hand seemed to vanish.
“I’m ready to pitch.”
“All right.”
The Manager looked uneasy about my taking the mound, but reluctantly agreed when I insisted I was fine.
Following my usual routine, I spent time in the Locker Room alone, looking at a photo of my Daughter, then headed to the Mound for the top of the first inning.
“Play ball.”
The Umpire’s call echoed.
At that same moment, my fingers, which had been calm, began to tingle.
“Huh?”
I flinched involuntarily and looked at my hand.
Just to be sure, I gripped the ball in my glove, and my fingertips felt subtly numb.
I gripped the ball once more, and this time it seemed fine.
“What’s going on?”
Since I was already on the Mound, I threw warm-up pitches to find my range.
The first few felt fine, but once I passed three pitches, I could sense something off, and by the fifth, I realized it.
The sensation of the seams catching my fingers… was ever so slightly delayed.
“Play ball!”
Before I could try anything else, the Umpire’s call started the game, so I waited for the Catcher’s sign to face the first Batter.
Do-bin glanced at the leadoff batter before flashing the sign.
Curveball. Low and center.
I nodded at the sign to bury the first pitch right into the strike zone, then moved into my delivery.
My leg rose smoothly, and as my throwing motion flowed naturally, the ball left my hand in a graceful arc.
For the first pitch, I chose a slow curveball.
Crack!
I flinched without thinking, my eyes tracking the batted ball.
The ball shot past the Foul Line and out of the Third Base Stands in an instant.
I hadn’t expected him to swing so aggressively on the first pitch, but seeing him wait for it and send it toward the Stands with such precision—he’d clearly anticipated it.
So this time, I pressed the pitch-com first.
Curveball. Low and inside.
Instead of dropping it into the strike zone, I gripped a 12-6 curveball with much steeper break and threw it hard.
Crack!
This one also went foul.
Where the previous one had headed toward the Stands, this one went toward the Dugout.
I could see the players scrambling to get out of the way, and I stopped my motion at the Umpire’s signal.
In that moment, I felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.
‘His timing… was he reading it?!’
Something felt like it was being read.
Not perfectly read, but it seemed like he was getting closer to matching my timing.
The curveball that had dominated batters in my previous appearance seemed to be giving me trouble today. And that strange sensation I’d felt when I woke this morning—it was now coursing through my fingertips.
‘I didn’t do anything different.’
I’d prepared as carefully as always and managed my condition well.
But I couldn’t understand why this was happening suddenly, and even before I came back in time, this had never occurred.
Fastball. Low and outside.
Fastball. Low and outside.
The pitch-com buzzed twice.
I’d been thinking and missed the sign, but worried the Umpire would warn me, I nodded and took my position.
I gripped the fastball as the Catcher wanted and threw it hard, then realized.
“Ah…”
A sigh escaped my lips as the ball I’d thrown drifted toward center instead of low and outside.
It was a perfect mistake pitch.
Crack!
With a thunderous impact, the ball streaked across the center of the Ground and soared high over the center fielder’s head before falling behind him.
Roar!
What?!
Cheers erupted from the Third Base Cheering Section, while disappointed groans and startled voices came from the First Base Cheering Section.
After coming off the field as a backup defender and returning to the Mound, I repeatedly clenched and unclenched my left hand.
‘This isn’t good.’
Something was definitely not right.
My body and mind were perfectly fine, yet it felt as though someone was forcibly restraining my fingers, and the result was this extra-base hit coursing down the line.
Bottom of the first inning, no outs.
Runners on second base with no outs.
I was starting in the worst possible situation.
* * *
Crack!
The ball Kang Ho-jin threw skipped along the First Base line.
The runner on Second Base bolted straight for Home without looking back, and the Batter in the box sprinted at full speed toward First Base.
Only when the ball was relayed to Home did the Batter-runner veer toward Second Base, and the ball arrived at Home.
“Safe!”
“Safe!”
Knowing the runner was safe at Home, they quickly relayed to Second Base, but the Batter was faster.
Watching this unfold, Manager Bong Jun-sik pressed his temples with both fingers, feeling a sharp, throbbing ache in his head.
He then gestured immediately toward the Pitching Coach.
“How’s Ho-jin?”
“He’s definitely different from usual.”
Kang Ho-jin’s pitches weren’t bad.
His practice throws in the Bullpen were solid, and his warm-up pitches on the Mound were equally fine. Yet something felt off—whether he was dissatisfied or there was an actual problem, it was different from his norm.
I could sense his slightly furrowed expression and the way his gaze kept drifting to his left palm.
“Is there really a problem?”
“Didn’t the Hospital say there was nothing wrong?”
“That’s because they didn’t take CT or MRI scans.”
“Should we go check on him?”
Part of me wanted to go up there immediately, but we’d only faced two Batters so far.
I decided to watch the next Batter before making a decision.
“Ball! Ball four!”
This time it was a walk.
In an instant, we had runners on First and Second with no outs.
Already down by one run, with the situation deteriorating rapidly, I had no choice but to send the Pitching Coach up to the Mound.
The Pitching Coach covered his mouth with his glove, exchanged tense words for a brief moment, patted Ho-jin’s shoulder, and came back down to report to the Manager.
“He says his finger sensation is less than usual. All his pitches aren’t gripping the way they normally do.”
“Ugh… should I have just let him get checked at the Hospital?”
To Manager Bong Jun-sik, Kang Ho-jin was far more than just the third starter.
When the rebuilding process was complete this year and next, Bong Jun-sik had identified Ho-jin as the key card to propel the team into the upper ranks in one fell swoop.
No matter how well the Foreign Pitcher threw, the rotation order would place Ho-jin ahead of him.
It was a conclusion reached because Ho-jin possessed both the symbol of a homegrown ace in the ace position and the talent to unite fans and players as one.
This was the first time since Ho-jin’s call-up to the 1st Team that he’d shown such instability from the first inning.
As I pondered this, Ho-jin abandoned his curveball and pulled out his four-seam fastball, splitter, and changeup, securing the first out with a strikeout.
“That’s the way.”
Manager Bong Jun-sik made his decision.
“Let him give up to five runs. It’ll be good experience for him. After that, though, we pull everyone out.”
The coaching staff was taken aback by the Manager’s decision.
He was essentially leaving Kang Ho-jin—the franchise star they’d been grooming for the future—out there to fend for himself.
Every manager has their own philosophy when developing players.
Bong Jun-sik’s typical approach wasn’t to push players off a cliff and watch them claw their way back up, but rather to teach them step by step, guiding them forward methodically.
Yet with Kang Ho-jin, he’d chosen to shove him off that cliff, which was why the staff couldn’t help but be bewildered.
“Still, that kid will scratch and claw his way back up.”
Whether it was his nature and talent, or his sick Daughter driving him—
Bong Jun-sik had assessed Kang Ho-jin as a player capable of fighting for survival even in the worst circumstances.
True to the Manager’s prediction, I clawed desperately.
I mixed in different pitch types rather than relying solely on curveballs, fighting to get through each inning.
I gave up two runs in the first.
Considering I’d allowed only one more run with runners on first and second and no outs, it was a decent result.
In the second, I took two hits but gave up no runs. In the third, facing the heart of their lineup again, I took a massive blow—a high arc that cleared the fence.
Crack—!
The ball traced a parabola and fell beyond the Fence. The score widened to 3-0.
By the end of the fifth inning, my line looked like this:
5 innings, 5 runs.
91 pitches. 1 strikeout. 4 walks.
With still plenty of room before hitting 100 pitches, I took the Mound again for the sixth.
My eyes had grown cold, far different from when I’d first approached the Mound.
* * *
I’d scraped through five innings, constantly wondering what the problem was.
‘I can’t figure out the cause.’
Even before I came back to the past, this had never happened.
I’d always managed my body meticulously, catching even the smallest changes and adjusting accordingly to fix them.
But this time was different.
It had exceeded what I could handle.
No matter what I tried, that strange sensation in my hands wouldn’t disappear, and every time I threw, it kept irritating the problem, preventing me from pitching properly.
So why did I take the Mound?
There was only one reason.
‘I think I understand it now.’
There was only one difference between who I was before coming back to the past and who I am now.
Happiness.
Unlike the time I’d endured on nothing but desperation, despair, and regret, I was now laughing, talking, sharing time with others.
That wasn’t a bad thing.
Rather… it was closer to how people actually live.
‘…It was my mistake to drag all of that onto the Mound.’
My Daughter’s photograph, laughter shared with my teammates, the small moments of daily life—all of it was caught somewhere in my mind.
Subtle but unmistakable, it was clouding my fingertips.
I realized the sensation of the seams catching was delayed, and my release timing was off.
‘It’s too cluttered.’
So I cleared it away.
I pushed out everything that surfaced in my mind, one by one.
My Daughter.
My teammates.
My emotions.
Everything.
I emptied it all.
Right now, only one thing matters.
‘One pitch.’
The contest I create with this single small ball in my hand.
In that moment, my fingertips sharpened.
As I felt each individual seam catch against my fingers, the alienation in my palm vanished. Instead, the texture of the seams—thread by thread—stimulated my fingertips.
‘Yes.’
This is it.
I pressed the pitchcom.
Curveball. Low center.
Senior Pitcher Do-bin flinched at the pitch type I’d pulled out for the first time since the first inning. But he simply tapped his glove and reset his stance.
I didn’t hesitate at his gesture of trust and threw the ball with full force.
Whoosh!
“Swing!”
The bat cuts through empty air with the sound of the air being torn.
In that moment, I was certain.
I’d returned.
Happiness wasn’t the problem.
The problem was me—unable to let it go, stepping onto the Mound anyway.
“Phew…”
Standing on the Mound, I slowly clenched and unclenched my fist.
Now there’s no alienation at all.
‘…Don’t forget this.’
It’s okay to be happy.
It’s okay to smile.
But.
On the Mound, it’s different.
This place,
is a world of absolute competition.

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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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