Chapter 354 – Episode 346. Teaching. (2)
‘You can react to this level, right? Of course, it’s fun. If it were our team, I would have taught you more. Well, if you’re a hitter as good as Ji Maeng-ho, you’ll probably learn something from this at-bat.’
In this game, I had never thrown a two-seamer to Ji Meng-ho, but judging by his reaction, he was indeed a natural player.
‘Change-up this time. It’s an obvious timing, but it’s just a trick anyway. I have no intention of putting it in the zone. He throws it outward.’
‘Yes.’
A changeup that has a similar trajectory to a two-seamer, but is slower and has a greater angle. Even in the major leagues, there were not many batters who hit this ball. It would be nice to induce missed swings, but since this guy wasn’t the main character of this game anyway, a little trick is enough.
“Ball.”
And Ji Maeng-ho’s bat, which was about to be dragged out by the changeup, stops.
‘Are you enduring this?’
If the bat was dragged out, it wouldn’t be strange for a hitter who didn’t do anything special, but seeing how he endured it made him a hitter worth teaching. He was a pretty good hitter to the point where he held up this ball, but Seong-Hyun was looking even higher. The future of Korean baseball. Ji Maeng-ho had to grow further.
‘This time, I’ll throw in one more ball than before.’
‘Change-up again? It’s dangerous for Ji Maeng-ho?’
‘Are you okay. Even if you hit this far, you will never get a true hit.’
Will he be able to anticipate the change-up and get the timing right this time? And even if he gets his timing right, will he be able to produce a solid hit with this ball? Based on his experience dealing with numerous batters in the major leagues, the location where he is currently throwing is a location where he will never hit a hit even if he hits it.
Perfect!
“Foul!”
Like right now.
‘Did you expect the change-up?’
Seeing that, Seonghyun smiled slightly without anyone noticing. This was because Ji Maeng-ho’s fight was also quite good. Now, if you didn’t expect a change-up, you would just watch or miss the ball, but the fact that you made contact and hit it with the bat means that you expected a change-up.
However, in baseball, even if he predicted what pitch to throw, it would not come out with good results. He said that if the ball he predicted came, the batsman was bound to go out with the bat. It’s natural to feel confident that you can hit a ball that you know is flying in the trajectory you predicted.
However, if you hit the ball in this location, you may be lucky and make a hit that passes through the infield, but most of the time, it just puts the ball count at a disadvantage like it is now.
‘Now two strikes, one ball. What would you do if a slow fastball flew to the same location?’
Seonghyun chose a fastball as the fourth ball. A fastball thrown after a changeup. Obvious cheek combination. But looking at the restraints, it wasn’t obvious. Many pitchers choose this ball combination because throwing a fastball after a changeup has the effect of making the fastball appear faster than usual, but Seonghyun’s fastball was different.
If you throw with less force, the fastball, which is less than 5 km/h different from the change-up, will hit the same spot as before without breaking. Even if you predict the pitch, can you even predict the velocity?
Seonghyun threw the fourth ball full of anticipation.
Ta – Aak!
And the batted ball deflects sharply toward right field and leaves the pole. If the ball had gone a little further in, it would have been a home run. And on that batted ball,
‘… Huh? ‘You predicted this far?’
A feeling of embarrassment took over Seonghyeon. However, like a veteran, he quickly erased that embarrassment.
‘Oh, are you only thinking about fastballs and changeups? Delete everything else.’
It was a method that made sense. Usually, Guess hitters rely on fastballs and leave out a few breaking balls. Perhaps what Ji Maeng-ho is aiming for is an off-speed breaking ball that does not have a large angle. With this ball, Seonghyeon found out what kind of ball Ji Maeng-ho was aiming for.
No, I thought I figured it out.
Ta-ah!
‘Huh?’
[Ji Maeng-ho clears Seong-hyeon’s fifth ball! This batted ball goes to the left wall! Fence! Let’s go! … But foul.]
[Hey, a big foul home run came out. Seonghyun, you must have felt cold?]
However, the slider, which has a large angle and is fast, goes over the left pole and disappears. The direction of the hit tells us that the timing is close to being a close hit. It’s fortunate that the count was favorable, but if it had been an unfavorable strike count, he would have hit a home run while putting it in the zone.
‘What? Are you aiming for a fastball-changeup type and almost hitting the right spot on my slider? Did you really expect this far?’
Although he maintained a poker face like a veteran, Seonghyun, who had thought he would teach him, became confused.
‘Then to the curve…’
‘Brother! No curves!’
He tried to throw a curveball, but Lee Yong-gi desperately refused to sign.
‘I’ll throw it low. You can’t even touch it.’
Seonghyeon also knew that Ji Maeng-ho was particularly strong at curves, so he only allowed Lee Yong-gi to curve after sending a signal that he would control as low as possible.
‘Ha, I understand.’
A curveball was thrown despite Lee Yong-gi’s dissuasion.
“Ball.”
But as if he had expected all of that, Ji Maeng-ho just watched the curve without even moving.
‘You’re not even reacting here? Could it be that you were really expecting this ball?’
The mound came up to teach me a lesson. However, seeing Ji Maeng-ho react as if he knows all the tricks, cold sweat runs down Seong-hyeon’s back. So far, six balls have been thrown to Ji Maeng-ho. However, he did not time all the pitches just right or swing the bat as if he knew what he was doing.
Up and down, left and right, and six pitches. To put it simply, the probability of choosing one of the 24 numbers correctly is 4%. The probability of not making a mistake in 6 attempts is 0.6%. Of course, even if I didn’t do everything perfectly, I was able to show the same hitting as just before.
… If you try to be as unreasonable as possible and deny that Ji Maeng-ho broke the 0.6% probability.
Since the two-seam and four-seam pitches had similar speeds, they can be considered as one type of pitch, but hitters with good reaction speed were able to somehow bring the bat to the pitch even if they were not positioned properly. Also, the timing of the curve was obvious, so considering he threw the ball five times…
‘… 2%? This also doesn’t make sense. Rather…’
… It made more sense that Ji Maeng-ho read his thoughts as the media said. No, it really seemed like that. I’ve never seen a hitter like this even in the major leagues.
‘What on earth is this guy?’
After throwing six pitches, what I clearly realized was that this fresh-faced rookie hitter was better at fighting numbers than me. The batsman is only in his second year of debut!
-What are you doing? Don’t you throw it?
Ji Maeng-ho’s eyes as he looked at him seemed to say that. Those eyes make Seong Hyun, a veteran pitcher with over 200 wins between Korea and the United States, afraid. Those eyes that seem to read all of his thoughts.
Like a devil.
‘That’s why there’s so much fuss here and there. Ha.’
I had come up to the mound to teach, but now those thoughts were gone. The only thought is to win.
‘Fastball.’
‘Yes? Here? Wouldn’t it be too obvious?’
‘No, right now it’s the ball I’m most confident in.’
The winning shot was a change-up, but the ball I was most confident in was the fastball, which I threw the most. They say there are two ball counts left, but skipping them means defeat. Seonghyun was also a pitcher, and as he competed for the top spot in the major leagues, he was a person with stronger pride and competitive spirit than anyone else.
Even if I lost the game, I didn’t want to run away from the game. That was the pride of Seonghyeon, who had been throwing the ball for nearly 30 years. There was bound to be an inevitable moment for everyone at some point, and for Seonghyun, that moment was now.
‘… What is the location?’
And Lee Yong-gi, who formed the battery, noticed Seong-hyeon’s will.
‘Body side. Deeply.’
A fastball to the body that puts everything on the line.
[Seonghyun does the windup. The 7th district against Ji Maeng-ho!]
After throwing the ball, Seonghyun felt that it was the most refreshing fastball he had thrown in recent years. After his injury, he didn’t think he would ever feel this again, but the moment the ball left his hand, Seonghyeon’s mind was filled with the pleasure of having hit the best ball.
‘This too… !’
Ta – Aak!
And Ji Maeng-ho’s bat makes a loud sound and resonates with Seong-hyun’s fastball.
[This batted ball… !]
A hitting sound that lets everyone know where the ball is going without the caster continuing to speak. Seonghyeon could not bear to see the batted ball fly and lowered his head.
[Seonghyun’s first home run since his return! Ji Maeng-ho, last season’s MVP and AT’s 4th hitter, makes it! Ji Maeng-ho’s solo home run that ties the game! Now the game is at square one!]
‘Under… I was so arrogant. Even though he is young, he is still a player, so who is he teaching him? .’
And his face turned red with shame, as he had been thinking in vain of teaching a few minutes ago. Ji Maeng-ho was overwhelming himself in the battle. Really, it felt like he was pitching naked, like he knew what he was throwing. Complete defeat. In the battle of numbers, Ji Maeng-ho was ahead of him by one move, or maybe even several moves.
‘You thought you were the best just because you threw a few balls in the majors, Seonghyun, you still have a long way to go.’
When he raised his head with such shame, he saw Ji Meng-ho still standing at the plate.
‘Huh?’
And Ji Maeng-ho pointed at himself with the bat, grinned, and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something.
‘… ‘What is it?’
What are you trying to say? Seonghyeon concentrated on looking at the shape of Ji Maeng-ho’s mouth and followed the shape of Ji Maeng-ho’s mouth and uttered the words Ji Maeng-ho muttered.
“… Welcome to KBA?”
And Ji Maeng-ho aims the bat at himself like a gun, bounces the bat once, and throws it away.
“…”
When he was in the U.S., His teammate showed him that there was a guy in Korea who held a goal-scoring ceremony. As the ceremony unfolded before his eyes, Seonghyun’s thoughts stopped for a moment. And…,
“… Fuha!”
A self-mocking laugh came out.
It felt like he was teaching himself, who was a veteran and looked down on others, because he was scolding himself for judging other players with the narrow-minded idea that he was the right answer, and because he seemed to be punishing himself for being arrogant and thinking that no player in Korea could compete with him.
So I laughed.
[Ooh! Ji Maeng-ho’s exciting ceremony! Seonghyun is smiling?]
[This is Seonghyun’s first time seeing a scene like that in person. It looks like Seonghyun is taking the cute provocation of his young junior well.]
‘Okay, let’s think and act like a rookie who just debuted, Hyuna. You are not the best.’
Seonghyeon, who was already considered the best pitcher in Korean history when he was young, learned another lesson like that.
*
-AT Thunders! A 3-2 win over the Volcanic Falcons!
… The AT Thunders won a surprising victory over the Hwasan Falcons after a fierce battle that went into overtime, trailing the Hwasan Falcons by 0.5 games. This game attracted attention due to the starting matchup between Seonghyun and Cronks, and the team’s fourth batters, Ji Maeng-ho and Lee Yong-gi, showed off their presence by recording 2 RBIs each. The game was decided in the top of the 11th inning when Ji Maeng-ho, who was on base as the leadoff hitter, succeeded in stealing two bases, and the next hitter, Choi Jin-cheol, made an outfield fly and added one run…
Meanwhile, Seong-hyun pitched well, allowing 2 runs in 8 innings, and in the top of the 8th inning, he allowed a home run to Ji Maeng-ho, marking his first home run in his return…
ㄴㅇㅅㅁㅎㅅ
ㄴㅇㅅㅁㅎㅅ
ㄴJi Maeng-ho is crazy haha
ㄴSeonghyeon, an old bastard, made a fuss and said that it would not work against Meng Hosinㅋㅋㅋ
It was a great match between ㄴ and ㄹㅇ today.
ㄴJi Maeng-ho, that bastard is rude. They are giving a ceremony to Sunghyun. His personality is pouring outㅡ
ㄴㄴI’m pissed that you hit a home run and like dogs ㅅㅂ
ㄴ Seonghyeon is great and Ji Maeng-ho is also greatㅇㅇ The level was high today for the first time in a long time