The Genius Pitcher Dad Throws for His Daughter - Chapter 60

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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 60
#60.
To cut to the chase, our team won.
When I came down after pitching a solid six innings, we were down 5-0.
It would have been wasteful to deploy the Clutch Team, so Senior Pitcher Kim Jin-ho took the mound for the first time in a while.
I thought things were progressing smoothly after he struck out one batter, but he gave up a hit. However, the next batter hit into a double play, ending the inning.
The opposing team couldn’t muster much resistance and their offense ended quickly, which shortened our defensive time. Thanks to that, our batters—their focus sharpened—swung with ferocious power.
We scored 2 runs in the seventh and 3 runs in the eighth, then in the ninth, our Captain delivered a walk-off solo home run to secure the victory.
Combined with the two-game losing streak, the rain, and Monday, we’d escaped a six-game losing streak—the fans’ thunderous roar echoed through Sajik Baseball Stadium in celebration.
Everyone was rejoicing in the victory, and the Captain was being interviewed about his game-ending home run.
Watching him from a distance, I felt a bitter sting.
I should have been in that position, and I should have earned those points.
For my daughter’s sake, and for my own.
“Um… Manager.”
“Ah, Ho-jin. Good work out there.”
After the game ended, I approached the Manager and broached the subject.
“Would it be possible for me to make a quick trip to Seoul?”
The Manager, understanding what I meant, wore a contemplative expression.
Our team would head to Seoul for an away series after two consecutive games during the week.
So there was no problem with me joining them. In fact, it’s common for starting pitchers scheduled to pitch to arrive at away venues early for conditioning purposes.
What the Manager was likely wrestling with now was the concern that our team, which was finally coming together during this rebuilding phase, might see other players making similar unilateral moves if I did so.
After all, humans are creatures who desire what they see others enjoying alone.
“Fine. But make sure you report your conditioning and preparation process to the Pitching Coach every day.”
“Thank you.”
With the Manager’s approval, I prepared to head to Seoul.
I needed to see my daughter and get both my body and mind back in order.
* * *
Six innings, five runs allowed.
One hundred pitches, four strikeouts, four walks.
The moment Kang Ho-jin’s stat line was released, the internet erupted.
– Looks like he’s just a flash in the pan pitcher, huh?!
└ Giving up runs in two out of three games? He’s done for.
└ The Dolphins fans were acting like Kang Ho-jin was some incredible pitcher, but he’s finished now?
└ Looks like the analysis is complete. He’ll blow up in the second half, and even worse next year.
└ That’s the Dolphins for you. No dreams, no hope!
Those who had been waiting for Kang Ho-jin to collapse wrote as if on cue.
At first glance, there were posts tearing Kang Ho-jin down, and looking more closely, there were countless posts and comments mixed with all manner of criticism.
Particularly vicious were the posts targeting his family—many aimed at his daughter lying in the hospital room.
Though such posts were deleted before long, the important thing was that most of what they wrote expressed a desire for Kang Ho-jin’s downfall.
Yet despite all this, posts defending Kang Ho-jin continued to appear.
– You guys! Don’t just look at recent performance—check the cumulative stats.
└ He’s already pitched in 12 games.
└ And he’s thrown 38 and 2/3 innings!
└ He has 3 wins, 1 draw, and 7 saves!
└ What pitcher has ever put up numbers like that in their debut?!
└ We should just be grateful and thankful!
And it was true.
Kang Ho-jin had only taken the Mound in 12 games so far.
He’d appeared in 9 games during the first half.
Those games had yielded 2 wins and 7 saves—a record that had etched Kang Ho-jin’s name into the minds of the fans.
And he was a rookie at that.
After the second half began, he’d officially transitioned to starting pitcher and had only pitched three games.
In his first game, he’d drawn against Park Myung-hwan, South Korea’s representative pitcher; in the next, he’d earned the win; and this time, he hadn’t accumulated a victory.
By pure statistics alone, it might seem disappointing, but the fact that he could eat up sufficient innings and didn’t fall short against a National Team pitcher was reason enough to root for him.
However, baseball fans possessed one fundamental virtue above all else.
Emotional volatility.
They were people who rejoiced at one moment and grieved at the next as a matter of course.
Past performance meant nothing; they celebrated and lamented based solely on what they witnessed that day.
If this was a flaw, it was also a strength.
The next game proved it.
[7 and 1/3 innings pitched, 100 pitches, 3 hits allowed, 1 walk, 11 strikeouts, shutout victory!]
[The Dolphins’ future ace remained formidable!]
[Kang Ho-jin, the curveball genius rivaling Phoenix’s Park Myung-hwan!]
On Sunday, facing the Seoul Dragons, Kang Ho-jin had demonstrated his resurrection.
He didn’t shy away from the curveball that had been hit hard in his previous outing—he threw it aggressively this time as well, as if to prove his curve wasn’t an easy pitch to attack.
Of course, the opposing team didn’t intend to take it lying down.
Knowing that the Unicorns had focused on the curveball and produced results, they too attacked with the curve as their sole target.
But the outcome was the complete opposite of what the Unicorns had achieved.
Batters swung and missed at the dropping ball, and when they held back, it invariably passed through the Strike Zone, sending them trudging back to the Dugout.
Naturally, the Dolphins fans were delighted, and they left celebratory posts in the community.
– That’s it! Our Kang Ho-jin isn’t finished!
└ Seeing him pitch well again felt so good!
└ I saw Kang Ho-jin briefly at the hospital a while back. He must have stopped by his daughter’s Hospital Room.
└ A father is truly strong!
└ Congratulations on the win today!
└ Ye-jin, you’ve got this too!
Manager Bong Jun-sik, who had witnessed all these results, felt his mind growing complicated.
“Hmm… should I consider that a routine and a jinx as well?”
Because there was a difference in Kang Ho-jin’s performance between when he’d pitched after seeing his daughter and when he’d simply taken the mound.
If fans were emotionally volatile, then players were sensitive to jinxes.
Manager Bong Jun-sik’s mind grew even more tangled as he recalled the numerous jinxes he’d experienced during his playing days.
It was when the weekend three-game series ended and the team headed to their next away game in Incheon.
August was advancing toward mid-month, and a typhoon sweeping up from below unleashed torrential rains across all of South Korea.
The Dolphins found themselves granted an unexpected respite as the pennant race continued through the oppressive heat.
* * *
The decision to see my daughter had been the right one.
Watching Ye-jin lying motionless in the Hospital Room, breathing in shallow gasps, I could steel myself with clarity.
So I spent my days shuttling between the Hospital Room and the hotel gym, waiting for the team to finish their home games, and when I took the mound on Sunday, I reclaimed my true form.
More precisely, I returned to the cold, sharp demeanor I’d possessed right after converting to a starter.
I earned points again by becoming a winning pitcher.
“It’s almost over now….”
This year’s pennant race was now racing toward its conclusion.
Only one week of August remained.
Each team had already played over 110 games.
Roughly 30 games remained, and the league office was bustling to arrange the remaining second-half schedule.
We spent the away three-game series in the hotel, and even after returning to Busan, we couldn’t play any games.
The typhoon brought torrential rains that didn’t merely soak South Korea—they transformed it into a vast inland sea. Countless casualties and property damage ensued.
So much rain fell that it seemed South Korea itself had paused, yet in baseball, only one place continued moving forward.
The Gocheok Unicorns.
They were swept in a three-game midweek series against the Daegu Salamanders, and swept again in the weekend three-game series by the Changwon Griffins.
While everyone else conserved their strength, they alone played games simply because they had a domed stadium—and now they’d hit the wall of exhaustion, sliding backward.
Thanks to that, our game deficit had narrowed to three games.
What troubled the Unicorns most, however, was what appeared on television.
– We’ve just received word. Unicorns players Kim Byung-chan and Geum Jin-tae have been removed from the 1st Team roster due to injury.
The starting second baseman and right fielder had been added to the injured list.
As injuries piled up when the Unicorns were already pressed for time, the Unicorns manager’s ashen face appeared at the end of the game highlights.
Naturally, it was an opportunity for the Dolphins.
“If we play well, we can escape last place.”
“We have to do it this time.”
“We’ve rested well, so we absolutely have to do it.”
Excluding three teams, all seven remaining teams had been granted proper rest.
Of course, they’d traveled between away games just in case, but with the weekend three-game series at home, they’d been able to rest thoroughly.
And now.
My seniors, who had rested quietly like mice in their homes or dormitories, gathered in my room for the first time in a while. Everyone had their hands full preparing for tomorrow’s matchup against the Gwangju Elephants.
Since we were preparing against a team we’d faced once before, there wasn’t much to significantly revise.
“Most of them show weakness against breaking balls, and you all have strengths there.”
Senior Sung-hyuk spoke while looking at Senior Sang-hyuk and Senior Ji-hoon.
As Senior Sung-hyuk said, Senior Sang-hyuk just needed to avoid his knucklecurve and two-seam fastball, while Senior Ji-hoon could utilize his gyro slider.
By contrast, Senior Sung-hyuk, who threw only a four-seam fastball and changeup, found it somewhat challenging.
“Tsk… I need to have something too….”
During this week of rest, Sung-hyuk had been throwing the ball with various grips, attempting to develop a third pitch.
It was an effort to equip a new pitch, but he hadn’t yet found a suitable one. Perhaps that’s why he’d been wearing a disappointed expression lately.
Even with the Pitching Coach and Manager working with him, nothing promising emerged—though the trajectory of his forkball was decent. The problem was that it lacked the punch to serve as a primary pitch.
“Still, we got something out of this.”
“Right. We got one solid four-seam fastball. That’s enough.”
Jo Sang-hyuk and Jung Ji-hoon were right—we had indeed gained something.
With his exceptional grip strength, when he snapped the ball hard off his fingertips, the velocity of his four-seam fastball increased dramatically.
‘It barely seemed to drop at all.’
Rather than rising, it did drop—but noticeably less than the four-seamers thrown by other players.
It evoked memories of the legendary four-seam fastball once thrown by the Senior Pitcher, who had been called the Stone Buddha.
With just this improvement, Sung-hyuk’s value had risen, and our Clutch Team had become even more formidable.
After everyone finished discussing it, we shifted our attention to the scouting reports.
The sound of pages turning and pens moving filled the air.
We cross-referenced with the tablets provided by the Front Office and each prepared our own strategies.
Thirty games remained.
I would pitch in roughly six of them.
I had two points in reserve.
The season was drawing to a close.

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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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