Chapter 535 – Episode 527. Great Record. (1)

A total of 13 points were scored by both teams through the 4th inning. However, the score from the 5th inning was 1 point for both teams, and the chaotic game was gradually turning into a pitcher’s battle. In particular, when Ji Maeng-ho was thrown out with an ordinary fly and the fans watching the game were thinking that the game would just go on like this, Kang Han-beom’s blow came.

Most fans thought the game would end like this. Not only was the score tied, but now the best pitchers were coming out of both teams’ bullpens, and all the important batting lineups including Ji Maeng-ho and Kang Han-beom had passed.

Moreover, the rain was not unusual. The end of this game will be the bottom of the 8th inning at most.

In fact, with the rain now reaching a pouring level, the game supervisors and referees were slowly thinking of a rain cold.

The top of the 8th inning started in such a situation. When leadoff hitter Choi Jin-cheol, who could be expected to get a hit, retires with an out, and everyone thinks the game is over,

-6th batter, pinch hitter, Woo Gwan-hyung. Pinch hitter, Woo Kwan-hyung.

[As expected, the pinch hitter card that AT can choose here is none other than Woo Kwan-hyung, right?]

[Yes. The only player who can come on as a pinch hitter in this situation is Woo Kwan-hyung.]

Woo Kwan-hyung came to bat as a pinch hitter.

-LOL It’s Woo Gwan-hyung here. Shouldn’t it be a hit if he hits it? I think the game is over.

┗ㅋ It’s raining, but we’re struggling until the end to finish the game.

┗┗But even the supervisor can’t stand Woo Gwan-hyung’s at-bats.

┗┗Well, Guan Wooong, this is the last season, so he should go on tour haha

┗┗Kkk Busan Filial Piety Tourism Legend kkk

┗┗Honestly, if it wasn’t for Woo Kwan-hyung, the game would have ended here ㅇㅈ?

┗┗ㅇㅈㅋㅋㅋ

In a situation where 1 point was desperately needed, Woo Kwan-hyung appeared as a pinch hitter. Charlotte’s fans were laughing at the AT coaching staff’s decision to use Woo Gwan-hyung. In a way, it was natural. Woo Kwan-hyung’s performance this season was mostly as a pinch hitter, recording a ratio of 0.277/0.339/0.313/0.651.

It was a pretty good performance for a player who played most of the games as a pinch hitter, but Woo Gwan-hyeong recorded only 4 extra-base hits out of 31. All of those extra-base hits were doubles and there were no home runs.

Now the real end is in sight. What could possibly turn the game around was not a series of hits, but a home run that scored one run. There was no time to wait for consecutive hits.

And AT fans felt the same way.

-Why is my brother here? Isn’t Seongtae Yoon, who just has one room, better?

┗That bastard is a concubine

┗┗It’s just a meme, and the coach isn’t a communicator like you, so would he remove a player because of a meme?

┗┗Meme Ball?

┗┗But honestly, I don’t understand. Why Woo Gwan-hyung? As for the grades, this season, Shalcheop is crushing.

┗┗Gwanhyeong is Lee Soo-hyun’s drinking friend. Haha, I went to Busan, got caught in the rain once, sweated it out in Sauna, had a glass of liquor and a plate of raw fish, this is life

┗┗Oh… This is recognition haha

No matter how much you think about it, there is no reason for Woo Kwan-hyung to come in as a pinch hitter. It is said that Woo Kwan-hyung’s contact ability is still alive, but there was no runner on base, and it was impossible to expect a home run from Woo Kwan-hyung, who has recorded 0 home runs in the regular season since last year.

To find Woo Kwan-hyung’s home run record, he had to go back to last year’s Korean Series. He hit two home runs, including a walk-off home run, and won the Korean Series MVP. However, Woo Kwan-hyung’s regular season home run was a fairly old story.

Last season, Woo Kwan-hyung hit 0 home runs in the regular season. For Woo Kwan-hyeong, who hit 13 home runs in his debut season and hit double-digit home runs almost every year, hitting as high as 26 home runs, the record of 0 home runs in the regular season was an unfamiliar record.

In addition, the first half of the season is coming to an end, and the number of home runs that Woo Kwan-hyung has recorded is still zero. People thought, ‘An old man must have used his natural talent in the Korean Series just to get a chance to wear a championship ring.’ Even though he hit 0 home runs this season, they thought that it was just that, and that Woo Gwan-hyung had also aged a lot.

Of course, even if he did not hit a home run, Woo Kwan-hyung was a useful hitter. Normally, if you come on as a pinch hitter, your sense of the game is bound to drop, but Woo Gwan-hyeong is a player known as the embodiment of self-management, and this season he maintained his batting sense through consistent self-management, so he played as a pinch hitter in place of the lower batting lineup at important moments. Because he was doing a great job.

However, in a situation where everyone was pessimistic, there was someone in the AT dugout who believed in Woo Kwan-hyung.

‘If it’s a tubular type…, You never know.’

That was coach Lee Soo-hyun, who had been watching Woo Kwan-hyung longer than anyone else in the dugout. In the first year of Woo Kwan-hyung’s debut, Lee Soo-hyun, who played with him as the team’s main hitter, was always watching Woo Kwan-hyung even when he transferred to another team as a free agent and when he returned to AT as a coach.

From the beginning, the AT team was a team without any decent hitters except Woo Kwan-hyung, but there were other reasons than that. What Lee Soo-hyun focused on was Woo Gwan-hyung’s clutch ability. In general, baseball fans’ perception of Woo Kwan-hyung was that of a king of invincibility, a stat bastard who failed to lead the team to fall baseball, and an image of darkness, but the Woo Kwan-hyung that Lee Soo-hyun thought of was a completely different hitter.

Woo Kwan-hyung, whom Lee Soo-hyun watched for over 20 years, was, contrary to his public image, a very strong hitter in the clutch.

In a way, it was natural for fans to feel that way about Woo Kwan-hyung. Despite recording top stats in the league, when Woo Kwan-hyung was in his prime, the team never advanced to the fall baseball season.

Fans turned their attention to Woo Kwan-hyung, the team’s only top hitter, and such images were attached to Woo Kwan-hyung.

However, Woo Gwan-hyeong was a hitter who recorded over 90 RBIs six times in the season, even in a situation where there were almost no hitters on the team to support him, and even in a situation where other teams were in check and criticism from fans was pouring in, and in those dark times, AT He was the batsman at the center of the game that won.

In fact, when Lee Soo-hyun was playing for Hyeonseong, he had a hard time getting a timely hit from Woo Kwan-hyung in important situations when playing against AT. Of course, most of the games ended in AT’s defeat.

Plus, the last Korean series. Lee Soo-hyun also felt how scary Woo Gwan-hyeong’s will to end his life was when he saw it firsthand. Therefore, the batter chosen by Lee Soo-hyun at the very last moment was none other than Woo Gwan-hyung.

‘If you look at the records, it may be true, but there are things in baseball that cannot be explained by records. And Gwanhyeong’s clutch power is one of them.’

In today’s baseball world, where high-quality information is extracted from the information analysis team, saying something like this in public could have been met with criticism from baseball fans, but that was the baseball coach Lee Soo-hyun thought of.

In order to start the season, it was the right decision to look at the various data pouring in from all over. The season is long, and as it progresses, the outcome is bound to become more consistent. However, such data cannot be applied to each at-bat in a game full of variables.

A .100 hitter comes in as a pinch hitter and hits a walk-off hit, a 9-run pitcher comes in with the bases loaded and ends the inning with a KKK, and a 42-year-old hitter who hasn’t hit a home run all season gets the win in the Korean Series. It was a baseball game to become Series MVP by hitting two home runs.

That’s why Lee Soo-hyun believed.

Something that cannot be seen as a record. And Woo Kwan-hyung, who always delivered the necessary blows when AT was needed.

And, like Lee Soo-hyun, there were other people who believed in Woo Kwan-hyung.

-Woo Kwan-hyung! Woo Gwan-hyung! Woo Gwan-hyung!

“If it’s Woo Gwan-hyung, you never know.”

“Please, let’s just score one more point and end it. I came all the way to Busan and when it ends like this…”

On a rainy day, AT fans came from Seoul to Busan and were still raising their voices in support despite the rain. If you were watching this on TV, you would have been preparing for the end of the game with the thought, ‘Well, if I play well, I’ll hit at least one hit.’ But the fans who visited Sajik Stadium and watched the game in person never gave up until the end. It wasn’t there.

[Song Jae-yeol’s first pitch! Low ball to the body! Strike!]

[It doesn’t shake at all even in heavy rain. Song Jae-yeol, how long has it been since you last appeared in Charlotte? There is no wavering at all even against major player Woo Gwan-hyung.]

However, contrary to the expectations of fans and director Lee Soo-hyun, the situation was not easy. Song Jae-yeol’s first pitch against Woo Kwan-hyung is a strike. After that, Woo Gwan-hyeong missed the next forkball, and the count quickly went to no ball, two strikes.

-Woo Gwan-hyung, you son of a bitch, what are you looking for? That bastard has a fastball, forkball, and two tools. ㅅㅂ

┗Is there a two-core?

┗┗The two-seamer is also a fastball, you motherfucker. If you catch it at just the right time, it’s the same thing, but you’re talking like shit. I’m still mad after watching the game.

┗┗ㅂㅅ LOL

Woo Gwan-hyeong’s bat can’t get the timing right for the forkball at all.

“Ah, Wu Gwan-hyung is also very old.”

“Hey, don’t say negative things and support Woo Gwan-hyung.”

“Fuck, are you honestly going to hit me? Woo Gwan-hyung.”

“…”

Just when the fans who came to the baseball stadium and cheered in person were slowly fading away, Song Jae-yeol’s third ball left his hand. A forkball that goes into the strike zone after seeing that the timing for the forkball is not right.

And at that moment, Woo Kwan-hyung’s bat, which had been aiming for just one forkball, was swung.

Ta-ah!

[Huh? Uh?! Uh?! This batted ball! Right, right! Go over the wall on the right! 8:7! 8:7! Woo Gwan-hyung! Hits his first home run this season. And this home run is recorded as Woo Kwan-hyung’s 400th home run in his career! A moment of desperation! Woo Kwan-hyung widens the score gap by hitting his 400th home run! This batter is the heart of the Thunder! This is Woo Gwan-hyung!]