The Genius Pitcher Dad Throws for His Daughter - Chapter 78

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

Chapter 78
#78.
As always, Jung Jae-hyuk and Choi Dong-yeon were handling the broadcast for the Dolphins game.
As the first inning began, Jung Jae-hyuk raised the energy with his commentary.
“K! K! K! Kang Ho-jin showed us an excellent start right from the first inning!”
“He’s definitely off to a great start. With just ten pitches, Kang Ho-jin demonstrated what clean yet aggressive pitching looks like.”
Jung Jae-hyuk didn’t root for any particular team.
Throughout his career as a caster, he’d lived by the principle that favoring one team might compromise his impartiality, and so he’d maintained neutrality for over a decade.
But recently, that resolve had begun to waver.
Kang Ho-jin.
There was something captivating about a pitcher whose clean, refreshing style of play brought the same clarity to the hearts of those watching. The story of him pitching for his ailing daughter moved him deeply, and seeing him work so hard on the Mound for her awakening commanded his respect.
Still, he tried to maintain neutrality whenever he was broadcasting.
But when the first inning ended—with the Dolphins’ offense and the Salamanders’ defense concluded—and the broadcast transitioned to commercials, he found himself answering Choi Dong-yeon without thinking.
“Wow! Ho-jin really is something special. Just watching him is refreshing, and his stats are impressive too. How could you not love him?”
“I think you’re right.”
The biggest reason the Dolphins had escaped last place was none other than Kang Ho-jin’s arrival.
He’d come up in the late stages of the first half as a closer, securing seven saves while shutting the back door and winning games in the precarious Bullpen battles, then accumulated wins as a starting pitcher in the second half, naturally elevating the Dolphins’ standing.
For Dolphins fans, Kang Ho-jin was nothing short of a treasure.
The game continued to flow, and before long, the top of the third inning had ended.
“K! K! K! From the first through the third inning, he’s struck out eight batters total and continues to keep the scoreboard clean!”
“Kang Ho-jin’s pitches today are dropping incredibly. They’re falling far more than the batter’s bat. Even if you know what’s coming, you can’t get good contact on a pitch like that—it must be maddening for the hitters.”
Ho-jin’s pace today was exceptional.
From the first inning, he seemed intent on hunting strikeouts. When a ground ball broke the streak in the second inning against the heart of the lineup, fans sighed in disappointment that the consecutive strikeout streak had stopped at five.
But in the third inning as well, he deliberately racked up strikeouts, showing he was determined to build his strikeout total today.
Perhaps that’s why.
As he took the field for the fourth inning, fans in the Outfield began tearing up sketchbooks and drawing large K’s, each person holding one up.
“Ah! K signs have appeared in the Outfield. They’re precisely marking the eight strikeouts that Kang Ho-jin has recorded.”
“Wow… that’s impressive. We haven’t seen that in a while, have we? Strikeout ratios have definitely decreased in recent years. You can really see how much the Dolphins fans cherish Kang Ho-jin.”
In the meantime, Ho-jin began throwing and struck out the number one batter with four pitches for another strikeout.
“Four pitches! A swing and miss! That’s strikeout number nine! And another fan in the Outfield has drawn a K and is waving it above their head!”
“In the first inning, it was two on the outside and one on the inside, but this time he’s throwing the opposite pattern. The batter must be completely overwhelmed.”
At this point, Ho-jin’s strikeout record came up in conversation.
“Kang Ho-jin’s single-game strikeout record is twelve, correct?”
“That’s right. And the fact that he’s already at nine in the fourth inning means we could see him surpass that today.”
“Based on how the game is flowing, it looks like he’s deliberately targeting strikeouts.”
Just as Jung Jae-hyuk said, Ho-jin was truly hunting strikeouts alone.
Regardless of pitch count, he attacked aggressively toward the Strike Zone with an offensive approach.
The batters read his intent as well, and began desperately trying to put balls in play that entered the zone.
Crack!
After a six-pitch battle, the batter retreated with a fly ball to Left Field.
“That’s a fly out. Oh, one fan is lowering their K sketch with a look of regret.”
“Ha ha. The game is still less than halfway through, so they should get their chance soon.”
Sports Commentator Choi Dong-yeon made this remark as the next batter stepped up.
“A swing and miss on a dropping pitch! Not out situation. The Catcher calmly throws to First Base. And the tenth sketch comes down.”
“Ha ha! The fan who just lowered their sketch has quite a bit of baseball knowledge. They’re showing real attention to detail by lowering it in reverse since it’s a strikeout on a not out play.”
As the tenth strikeout came down as a not out, the fans’ roar grew thick and heavy.
Seeing this, Kang Ho-jin also responded by giving a thumbs up toward them, and the Sajik Baseball Stadium erupted with thunderous cheers.
The top of the fifth inning began.
Kang Ho-jin, who took the mound this inning, recorded one strikeout.
The persistent middle-order batters drove balls into both the infield and outfield, retiring on fly outs.
By the end of the fifth inning, the pitch count had reached 71.
Likely due to the pitcher hunting for strikeouts and the batters trying to prevent them, the pitch count was higher than usual, and the Dolphins’ Bullpen players began warming up, one by one stretching their arms.
The top of the sixth inning came next.
This time, I recorded three outs on just ten pitches.
“K! K! K! Against the lower-order batters, three strikeouts on just ten pitches!”
“Merciless. Just like in the third inning, regardless of inside or outside, the batters helplessly flailed at the dropping splitter!”
The K’s in the Outfield increased to 14.
At the same time, an unusual atmosphere settled over both Dugouts.
One side wondered if they might become victims of a record, while the other wondered if a record might be set.
Both the Dolphins and Salamanders coaching staffs began moving about busily.
* * *
The Salamanders Dugout.
While the starting players rested, a batting lineup composed of substitutes and rookies fought their hardest on the Ground.
Especially on defense, they showed heightened concentration compared to usual, converting every ball coming from the infield and outfield into outs and steadily building the count.
The only problem was that their hitting produced no meaningful results.
Rather, they were being one-sidedly battered.
Every pitch was shoved into the Strike Zone, and balls that should have been called balls would drop after heading toward the Strike Zone, leaving no choice but to swing.
As a result, by the end of the sixth inning, the strikeout count had grown to 14.
“This crazy bastard… he’s really going for it….”
“Wow… even so, is this actually happening?”
“Can you actually do that just by deciding to?”
“If you could, my salary would’ve gone up.”
“But how is he pulling this off?!”
Both pitchers and batters stared at Kang Ho-jin in disbelief.
Even watching it with their own eyes, they couldn’t believe it, and as a result, tension and pressure gradually filled the Ground.
Already a field packed with substitute and rookie players, the concern was whether these young players could withstand such pressure.
‘Damn it! This isn’t how it was supposed to go!’
The Salamanders Manager felt worried for a different reason.
The original plan was to take some hits while scoring some runs in return.
Through this process, we would discover promising prospects among the substitutes and rookies, give the starting players rest, and comfortably handle the remaining schedule.
It was a well-prepared plan, and I believed it would work out.
But hadn’t that great boxer said it? Everyone has a plan that sounds plausible until they get hit.
‘Until you take that one blow….’
That single blow was so devastating, so heavy.
And that one strike hadn’t ended yet.
To escape this crisis, I had to change the momentum somehow.
“Get the pinch hitters ready for the next batter.”
“Yes, Manager.”
The coaching staff, sensing the current situation, moved about busily.
I had to deploy a pinch-hitting strategy with the team’s best contact hitter to rattle the pitcher. Records aside, it was too valuable to simply concede the game in this surprising 0-0 situation.
As we entered the top of the seventh inning, I pulled the pinch-hitter card starting with the leadoff batter.
“Pinch hitter.”
Hong Seok-hyun, who normally batted cleanup for the team, stepped into the Batter’s Box.
Having rested well before coming up, his face looked considerably relaxed.
And he began cutting off Kang Ho-jin’s pitches one after another.
Though a cleanup batter, Hong Seok-hyun wasn’t a power hitter chasing home runs—he was a mid-range contact hitter who reliably drove in runs.
Displaying that ability, he quickly fouled off six of Kang Ho-jin’s pitches.
Watching Hong Seok-hyun grin and enjoy the moment, the pallor began to fade from my face.
But it was only temporary.
“Swing!”
A foul out.
Before Hong Seok-hyun could even move toward First Base, the ball tagged him—a foul strikeout.
That made fifteen.
The Salamanders Manager’s face grew even paler.
And by the end of the seventh inning, it had grown even more ashen.
The K mark had reached sixteen.
* * *
The Dugout is quiet.
When did it start? Probably around the fifth inning.
And now, with the seventh inning over, no one in the Dugout is making a sound.
Not a single person stands near me.
They’re being so considerate that it’s almost burdensome.
Facing familiar opponents who weren’t as threatening as before, I thought I could easily control the game, so I deliberately targeted strikeouts.
It was unfortunate that my pitch count was rising, but I thought—when else would I get the chance to deliberately rack up strikeouts like this?—so I pursued nothing but strikeouts relentlessly.
And that’s the result I have now, which is why my body is drenched in sweat.
I looked around for a towel, and just as I was about to move to find one, I realized there wasn’t one nearby.
“Here you go.”
Song Moon-jung approached and handed me a towel.
Beside him, Hwang Seung-tae held water, and Yun Jung-woong held an ion drink.
The sight of it made me laugh.
I quietly accepted the towel and wiped my face clean. When I reached for the ion drink Yun Jung-woong was holding, he opened the cap himself and handed it to me.
“Thank you all.”
At my words of gratitude, they quietly retreated backward.
It wasn’t like subjects bowing out after an audience with a king, and their backward steps were so amusing that I nearly laughed.
Thanks to that, the tension I’d felt before the record attempt had eased considerably.
My pitch count so far was 92.
I had 2 innings remaining, and I needed 3 more strikeouts to achieve my goal.
The current KBO single-game strikeout record was 18.
One was Sun Dong-yeol’s 13-inning 18K, and Cody Ponce achieved 9-inning 18K last year.
Therefore, to achieve the record now, I needed 3 more strikeouts.
‘My remaining stamina is 9. After an hour passes, 1 more will be added, making it 10.’
Essentially, I had to record strikeouts with 10 pitches in the next inning somehow.
It wasn’t easy.
No, it was extremely difficult.
The one saving grace was that I wasn’t in the middle of a perfect game. Thanks to allowing a hit in the second inning earlier, I didn’t need to worry about an even greater record.
‘They probably don’t want to be sacrificial lambs either.’
They were deliberately making contact with pitches, wearing down my stamina. On top of that, they were creating in-play hits, aiming for fly outs instead of strikeouts.
I pondered how I could reliably achieve the strikeout record with my remaining pitches in this situation.
‘Is there really no other way?’
I opened the status window and looked at one section.
[Kang Ho-jin]
– Maximum Stamina: 101
– Maximum Fastball Velocity: 150km
– Pitch Arsenal: Four-Seam Fastball(B), Changeup(D), Curveball(A), Splitter(C)
– Available Skills: Healing(S)
– Special Notes:
– Remaining Points: 2.
I made my decision.
– Points have been consumed.

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