Chapter 414 – Episode 406. This Isn’t Baseball…
[7th inning, Choi Joong-hoon is still on the mound. … Choi Joong-hoon catches Tetsuto! One out!]
[Great. Joong-Hoon Choi! Good.]
[Now the 7th batter, Sosuke Genda, comes to bat. You made a crucial error last inning, right?]
[It is said that good batting comes after good defense, but players who make mistakes also need to be careful. There are times when you have to exert tremendous concentration to make up for a hit.]
[Ah! A hit that lands in front of center field. Sousuke gets on base. One out, first base. … Yuhei Nakamura’s consecutive hits! Choi Joong-hoon seems to have reached this point. Korea’s next pitcher will be Kim Won-ho.]
[Kim Won-ho showed a poor performance against the Netherlands, but against Panama, he held off Panama’s batting line with two scoreless innings. Also, since he is a player with a good position and a very good record in the league, I think he will be able to block him.]
[Strike! Out! Kim Won-ho throws out 9th batter Kensuke in a critical situation! … The batted ball flies high! Shortstop Choi Joo-tae signs that he will catch it! Out. Korea blocks Japan’s batting lineup with no runs in the top of the 7th inning! One out, crisis situation on 1st and 2nd base ends.]
[Bottom of the 7th inning, Ohtani still on the mound. … Strike! Out! This is Ohtani, who ends the inning with a three-way throw.]
[Under… Ohtani player. It really looks like a monster. Normally, if you hit a home run, it would be easy to collapse, haha… We need to get Otani down quickly. 81 until the bottom of the 7th inning. You still look relaxed, right? You have to persistently compete. Persistently.]
While making the cut, he harasses the pitcher and gets him off the mound. The words were good, but such a strategy was useless in the face of overwhelming force. The Korean batters also tried their best to get Ohtani off the mound, but Ohtani seemed to know this and threw the ball into the zone to cook the Korean batters.
[In the top of the 8th inning, UG Overlords’ closer Kim Woo-jun comes on the mound in Korea.]
[This is a pitcher change to deal with Japan’s left-handed batting line, right? Kim Woo-jun is also a left-hander, and his OPS is very low against left-handed hitters.]
And then came the top of the 8th inning. Japan’s leadoff hitter was Ohtani, who hit two home runs. Kim Woo-jun is UG’s left-handed closer and has been the best pitcher in Korea since Ko Young-hwan left, along with Shin Su-ho, but he could not help but falter against Ohtani, who proved his batting ability by hitting two home runs.
“Ball.”
“Ball.”
“Ball.”
[The device falls far away. In fact, it is a will to filter it out. Kim Woo-jun gives Ohtani a walk. The lead hitter gets on base.]
[It worked out better. There is no need to compete with Ohtani, who has a good hitting feel. Moreover, although Ohtani is a player who can run, Ohtani is currently in a situation where he cannot run or be replaced because he has to guard the mound.]
-Phew, that’s a relief. It’s better to just skip it
┗ㄹㅇ It’s better than competing for no reason and getting beaten.
-But what if I steal base? Isn’t Otani pretty fast?
┗Are you sure? I’m still throwing.
Ohtani’s leadoff hitter gets on base. As a tool guy, Ohtani was a player who stole double digits every year in the major leagues, but few people thought that Ohtani would run in this situation. He was still on the mound throwing, and given the way the ball was being thrown, it didn’t look like he was going to change pitchers in the next inning.
No manager wanted to drain a pitcher’s stamina by forcing him to steal when he was on base. However, Otani was different. In a situation where 1 point was needed, Ohtani ran to help the team win.
[Ohtani runs! Lee Yong-gi throws the ball to second base!]
And…, Lee Yong-gi’s shoulders were shining as he was watching Ohtani closely.
[At second base! At second base! Out! Lee Yong-gi, who catches Otani!]
[Hey, this is it! It would be difficult for even Ohtani to steal second base in front of Lee Yong-ki, who boasts the best defense in Korea!]
[Lee Yong-gi, who was silent today with no hits in 3 at-bats! Catch a decisive out!]
“Nice!”
“Almost like a rayon?”
A threatening situation in which the leadoff hitter got on base due to a walk ended with a failed steal, and Kim Woo-jun feels at ease.
[Strike! Out! … A fly ball to right field! Catch it! Woojun Kim finishing the top of the 8th inning! Now it’s on to Korea’s attack in the bottom of the 8th inning!]
[Attack in the bottom of the 8th inning. It’s important. The batting lineup consists of Kang Han-beom, Choi Joo-tae, and Ji Maeng-ho, and all three players got on base today against Ohtani, right? Score here.]
In the bottom of the 8th inning, if you score just 1 run, you could be close to winning. Because the batting lineup was good, fans watching the baseball game watched at the TV with anticipation. However, Ohtani’s pitch was still the same, and he dealt with the batters as if he was trying to atone for his failure to steal base in the previous inning.
[Kang Han-beom’s batted ball gets stuck in the infield. One out. … Choi Joo-tae’s batted ball! It flies high! Center field! Catch it… ! Ah… Two out. Now 2 for 3 today. Ji Maeng-ho, who scored a double and a home run to score all three runs for Korea, comes to bat!]
[Ji Maeng-ho can do it. Ji Maeng-ho is the one who can solve this situation.]
[Strike! It reads 99.4 miles. Do you throw balls like this even though there are over 90 pitches? Otani. It’s an enemy, but it’s great. … Foul! Ji Maeng-ho is driven to two strikes.]
[It’s okay. It’s still okay.]
[Ohtani throws the ball. Jitterbug! Fan… Ah… Ohtani’s sweeper draws Ji Maeng-ho’s bat.]
[… That was a good throw. It seems like about 2 were out of the strike zone, but that’s definitely a typo.]
The pattern of the game is that if Korea blocks, Ohtani also blocks. That pattern continued in the 9th inning. Korea’s closer, Ko Young-hwan, came up to close the 9th inning, and Ohtani was not to be outdone, striking out the Korean batters with a three-way strike. Overtime ended with the score tied at 3:3.
[In the top of the 10th inning, the game will now be decided by a shootout. Japan set Sosuke and Yuhei as runners on first and second base, and the batter is Kensuke Kondo.]
[To briefly explain the penalty shootout, if the two teams are tied through the 9th inning and there is overtime, the game is played with runners on 1st and 2nd base to shorten the game time, right? In the past Olympics and WBC, this rule was not applied in the finals, but in this Olympics, this rule was also applied in the finals, right? So, this final is the first penalty shootout to be held in the final.]
[This is probably an effort to shorten the game time, right?]
[Yes. Also, these attractions are a factor in increasing the popularity of baseball.]
[And in the top of the 10th inning, Jung Woo-sung comes on the mound for Korea!]
[Jung Woo-sung! He is now a starter, but early in his career, he was a top closer with 36 saves in the major leagues. Jung Woo-sung! We will prevent this crisis!]
*
‘What kind of fucking situation is this?’
Rossby didn’t seem to understand the rules of winning. No, he didn’t seem to have any intention of understanding. It was clear to see that he was always fussing next to me. I also wondered why this rule was introduced in the finals, but that doesn’t change the established rules. Perhaps this is one of the many things to do to revive the popularity of baseball.
‘I told you.’
‘Fuck! This gay thing is called baseball? No, this isn’t baseball…’
I draw attention to Rossby, who doesn’t understand even if I keep talking, and focus on winning. Jung Woo-sung on the mound. As an underhand pitcher, he was good at throwing ground balls, so I had to focus especially.
‘Seeing as Kensuke was the lead hitter, he would probably bunt, right?’
The reason why Ohtani was not selected as the first batter was obvious. To advance the runner. And as expected, Kensuke bunts. The moment Kensuke bunted, he quickly covered the base toward first base.
“First base!”
“First!”
“Out!”
And out at first base. Now a situation has been created with one out and second and third base. The batter is Seiya Suzuki. The real battle begins now. The coach ordered a forward defense as if he did not intend to give even a single point. And Jung Woo-sung’s first pitch was thrown.
Perfect!
‘Hitting the first pitch!’
Seiya’s batted ball quickly heads towards me. Fast, but honest bounce. Phut! I could feel the ball being caught clearly in my glove.
‘Home!’
“Home!”
Rossby and Lee Yong-gi’s judgments were consistent. Lee Yong-gi, who is taking his place at home. I threw the ball toward home as I had practiced. A ball that lands precisely on Lee Yong-gi’s mitt.
“Out!”
“That’s it!”
“Nice!”
Lee Yong-gi tagged the arm of the runner on third base, instantly increasing the count by two.
“Let’s deal with just one thing!”
Now the batsman is Ohtani. Of course, our choice was intentional. Ohtani walks into first base with a lonely look in his eyes. There is only one out count left!
Jung Woo-sung throws the ball at the crossroads of victory.
“Strike!”
“Strike!”
Perfect!
Murakami’s batted ball floats high. And, Kim Jeong-hyun caught it. Three outs with this! It was a valuable out count that almost crossed the 9th ridge.
“Good! Now all you have to do is score 1 point to win!”
Su-ho Kim was on second base, and Ji-hyuk Yang, a pinch runner, replaced Kang Han-beom on first base. And at the plate, Choi Joo-tae.
Our choice was a strong attack. Even if Choi Joo-tae bunts, all he has to do is skip me and compete with Gi Ki-joo. This was a strategy chosen based on the judgment that if first base was empty, they would unconditionally skip me. Moreover, since Ohtani had pitched until the 10th inning, it was a strategy made based on the judgment that he might falter.
Perfect!
But Otani was still the same. Choi Joo-tae’s batted ball flies toward right field.
“Out!”
The moment the right fielder catches the ball, Kim Jeong-hyun rushes toward third base. And the right fielder’s throw.
“Safe!”
“Nice!”
Now, 1 out, 1st and 3rd bases. My time at bat came with the runner on third base being replaced by Park Cheol-young. Forward defense in both infield and outfield. Since it was a one-point situation anyway, their defense was the right choice.
‘If the defense is like this, it means they won’t skip it, right?’
There was a possibility that they would launch a bases loaded strategy with one out, but looking at the state of the defense, it seemed like they were probably planning to compete with me.
I’ll probably skip it if the ball count is high, but I won’t necessarily skip it from the beginning. Actually, the best pitcher in the world wouldn’t necessarily want to avoid me. Moreover, he was the guy who struck me out once in the previous at-bat. Unlike when I hit a home run, I pitched much more cautiously.
“Ball.”
His first pitch was a ball. When the catcher throws the ball again, Ohtani makes eye contact.
Those eyes are like, ‘Aren’t you going to hit me? ‘Can I walk to first base?’ That’s what he seemed to be saying. My back hitters are Gi Ki-joo and Joo Seung-cheol. Although Ki-Ki Joo recorded one hit, I didn’t think he would hit a good ball against Ohtani. A situation I have to solve.
‘Well, is there really a need to go so hard?’
1 out, 1st and 3rd bases. There is a forward defense, but you just have to figure out how to match it. After sending a sign to third base runner Park Cheol-young, wait, and throw the easiest ball possible…
‘It’s a sweeper. Outside.’
‘Now!’
As soon as Ohtani makes the motion to pitch, he puts the bat down. Japan’s infield looks embarrassed. Tuk! After hitting the bat, run toward first base.
“Homu! Homu!”
I can hear the first baseman shouting urgently. I don’t know what it means because it’s Japanese English, but considering the situation, I guess it means home.
“Safe!”
Wow, it seemed like my bunt skills weren’t dead yet. I think I practiced bunting like that in the Korean Series for this day.
“Waaaaa!!!!”
Otani shakes his head in despair, putting his hand on his side, as if he had no idea that I would bunt.
‘Fool, did you think I would win?’
‘Fuck. This, this is not baseball… ‘This is not the baseball I love!’
‘When did you fall in love? ‘Baseball.’
‘Shut up! This girl’s prank is baseball! Who came up with the damn rule of winning?!’
‘I told you. It is a rule created by the Major League to reduce game time. I heard that if the response is good at the Olympics, they will introduce it in the major leagues as well?’
‘Fuck! ‘This is not baseball!’
But Rossby’s cries were soon drowned out. Because the players who brought drinks and water were throwing water on my body and screaming.
“And! Fuck! Hey man! I really love you!”
“It’s a win! Win! Fuck! Winner!”
“Meng Hao!!!! Really!! You crazy bastard… !!!”
It’s a shame that the match with Ohtani ended in an unpleasant way, but these are the rules. Well, I should have skipped it if it bothered me. Honestly, I thought we would have lost if we had just played overtime. That monster, even if he couldn’t do it, he was ready to throw until the 13th inning.
“What? “Why is your expression like this when you finish this bastard?”
“Great. “Winning.”
“Hey! Gather together! Let’s take a photo!”
“Yes!”
All players gather near the mound. It didn’t really feel like it ended with a bunt, but it was a win anyway. Even the Olympics! After seeing the players gather on the mound, I felt like I was starting to feel it.
“Gather together! Gather together! Cheese!”
“Hey! What do Koreans say about cheese? “It should be called kimchi.”
With the noisy players,
‘… ‘This is not baseball.’
Rossby mumbles.
‘Hey, Mr. Rossby. It’s not baseball. If you win, that’s baseball.’
‘Shut up!’
A flash explodes along with Rossby’s swearing. That’s how my first Olympics ended.