Chapter 619 – Episode 606. Moon Ki-Taek Is Smiling.

In the first week of opening, when AT fell to the bottom, Moon Ki-taek said, ‘I guess I was unlucky. Well, if you make that many mistakes, you can’t win. Has AT finally fallen into inertia? ‘After all, three consecutive league losses are hard to motivate,’ he thought, nodding his head.

And in the second week, when AT was still not up, Moon Ki-taek said, ‘Do you think it’s possible to get first place regularly if you do this? “It will come up soon anyway, but it’s big to stay for a week or two in this kind of top-tier competition,” He thought, raising his eyebrows at the possibility of winning.

And now, a month after the opening, when he saw AT still in 9th place, Moon Ki-taek was confused and thought, ‘Why?’ That AT is in 9th place during the opening month. AT, which achieved 100 wins last season and was arguably the best team in history, plummeted to 9th place in just one year!

I was happy at the thought of winning, but as a baseball player, I was purely curious. The curiosity was even greater because Moon Ki-taek was working as a coach with the idea that he had to defeat the AT Thunders to win the KBA League.

Although there were many reasons for AT’s performance to decline, such as errors, mismatched pitches, aging of key hitters, etc., Moon Ki-taek thought that they did not seem to have the strength to rank 9th. In fact, the performance of AT’s key players was decent.

Except for the third baseman and mercenary hitter Birch, who came in as a substitute for Kim Su-ho, everyone was maintaining an OPS of 0.7 or higher, Ki Ki-joo and Yoon Seong-tae were recording an OPS of 0.8 or higher, and Ji Maeng-ho was recording an OPS of 1.4 or higher.

In addition, the starting pitchers also gave up a lot of runs, but except Diaz, their ERAs were around the 3-point range.

Therefore, as the first game against AT approached, Moon Ki-taek became excited at the thought of being able to resolve his curiosity.

Baseball is a sport of records, but there are things that can only be felt directly on the field. As a baseball player, I wanted to answer that question through this game against AT.

And the first game started. Moon Ki-taek naturally selected Kim Min-jun as the 5th starter, and it seemed like he could roughly understand why AT’s results were not coming out.

[In the top of the second inning, leadoff hitter Ji Maeng-ho hits a double! … Steal success! Now you’re on third base with no outs! … Seongtae Yoon’s batted ball floats high in the infield. Ji Maeng-ho returns to third base! … Choi Jin-cheol’s batted ball floats high in the outfield! Out! Meanwhile, Ji Maeng-ho heads home. AT Thunders get 1 point first! 1:0. AT Thunders take the lead against Volcano Falcons.]

‘Hmm, the batting lineup isn’t as organic as I thought?’

AT’s usual scoring formula is to get on base and then steal base. And he even scored on a sacrifice hit. The formula for scoring 1 point was the same as last year, but something felt off. A sense of incongruity, as if something is strangely out of sync…

Due to that sense of incongruity, Moon Ki-taek decided to look at the data again.

“Coach Kim, please bring an analysis of the opponent’s strength.”

“Yes? “Now?”

“Okay, now.”

Although we are down by one run, it is now the top of the second inning. There was little for the manager to intervene in, and the opposing pitcher was also Lim Jun-hoo, the 5th starter, so he was confident that he could score 3–4 points against Lim Jun-hoo without having to use a batting strategy. Therefore, based on the sense of discomfort he felt, Manager Moon Ki-taek decided to use the AT Thunders. I started analyzing the batting lineup.

CF Jeong Hwi-cheol 0.292/0.393/0.342/0.735 35H 0HR 6SB

RF Baek Jeong-jin 0.296/0.382/0.409/0.790 34H 2HR 4SB

LF weather week 0.315/0.384/0.476/0.860 39H 3HR 0SB

2B Ji Maeng-ho 0.351/0.555/0.856/1.410 34H 9HR 11SB

SS Seongtae Yoon 0.284/0.381/0.483/0.863 33H 5HR 4SB

1B Choi Jin-cheol 0.240/0.307/0.394/0.701 25H 3HR 0SB

C Baek Kyung-ho 0.255/0.321/0.431/0.753 13H 2HR 0SB

C Kim Hyun-seong 0.250/0.351/0.359/0.711 16H 1HR 0SB

DH Birch 0.228/0.358/0.304/0.662 18H 1HR 3SB

‘Hmm… Except for Choi Jin-cheol, whose aging curve has clearly shown as he gets older, all of his basic grades are good… Ji Maeng-ho’s performance was a bit lower than last year, but this is enough to be a top-tier performance in the league… Catchers Baek Kyung-ho and Kim Hyun-seong are playing alternately, but it’s not a difference that really affects them… Is it really a big deal that the mercenaries failed? That means it’s creaky even before it comes out…’

The top batting lineup was recording an on-base percentage in the low .300 range, and the central batting lineup was recording an OPS exceeding 0.8. Choi Jin-cheol, the 6th hitter, had a very poor performance, and Birch, the 8th hitter, and the third baseman who played 9th were almost non-existent, but even just looking at the top batting lineup, it felt like something was amiss.

Of course, Ji Maeng-ho’s performance dropped. The hitter currently recording the best performance in the league was undeniably Ji Maeng-ho, but it was true that he was a bit disappointed compared to the overwhelming performance he showed over the past three years.

However, Moon Ki-taek thought that such a decline in grades was natural. Ki Maeng-ho, Williams, Kim Su-ho, Choi Jin-cheol, and Woo Gwan-hyeong, along with Williams and other hitters known as AT’s veteran four, surrounded Ji Maeng-ho from front to back, so Ji Maeng-ho was the type of hitter who could score points by skipping long hits in a game.

But now, Williams has left the team, among the four veteran players, Woo Kwan-hyung has retired, and Choi Jin-cheol is in his 40s and is no longer the same person who bombed the league in the past. In addition, Kim Soo-ho was injured and was showing good results despite being the youngest among them, but at the age of 35, it would not be surprising if he broke down at any time.

Moreover, no matter how poorly Choi Jin-cheol performed, there was no manager in the league who could remove Choi Jin-cheol from the batting order unless he requested it. Even for Moon Ki-taek himself, it would have been a burden to leave out a hitter with the reputation of Choi Jin-cheol and who hit over 20 home runs last year as well.

It was natural for a batter’s batting average to drop in a batting lineup where the umbrella effect was gone, and although Seongtae Yoon was at least supporting him, Seongtae Yoon was a hitter with a high rate of strikeouts and had a batting average of .206 on contact except last year. He was a hitter who had a hard time. If the match against Ji Maeng-ho becomes difficult, he is the type that is perfect for skipping the match and competing with the batsman behind him…

So, it was natural that Ji Maeng-ho’s grades fell to some extent. Rather, the fact that he maintained a batting gap of around 2 even while his performance was dropping clearly speaks volumes about what kind of hitter Ji Maeng-ho is.

“Out!”

While Moon Ki-taek was wondering why AT was ranked in a miserable 9th place, AT’s attack came to an end when the 8th batter, Butch, was out. And when I saw that, I wondered if it was meaningful to analyze AT’s power.

‘Hmm… If things continue like this, I don’t think we’ll even be able to play fall baseball… Rather than paying attention to these low-ranking teams…’

Moon Ki-taek had prepared for spring camp by shouting that AT would be defeated even before the season, but the match against AT felt too trivial. Even though he was trailing by 1 point. And just as Moon Ki-taek thought, the economy slowly began to tilt toward volcanoes.

[Lee Yong-gi’s two-run home run! Lim Jun-hoo, who had pitched 3 scoreless innings, is given the first run! 2:1 comeback!]

In the top of the 4th inning, the Hwasan Falcons successfully came back with Lee Yong-gi’s two-run home run. AT’s leadoff hitter, Ji Maeng-ho, got a chance to reach first base with no outs thanks to a hit by the weather.

‘Well, there’s no need to save those guys’ spirit. It’s not strange if they suddenly attack you. Minjun, fight outside and filter out.’

In that situation, the method Moon Ki-taek chose was to filter out Ji Maeng-ho as much as possible. Even if the performance was slightly lower, Ji Maeng-ho was Ji Maeng-ho, and the atmosphere could have turned strange with a home run in the next inning after a comeback, so Moon Ki-taek busily moved his hand and sent a sign to starting pitcher Kim Min-jun to skip Ji Maeng-ho.

Although Yoon Seong-tae was behind him, he was a batter with a high probability of striking out, and Choi Jin-cheol, who followed him, was almost a free out count, so Moon Ki-taek chose to not give out as many points as possible.

It was a very natural choice for Moon Ki-taek, who knew very well that even though the team was ranked 9th, the fight for 1st place depended on how well the team was able to defeat the weak team.

“Base on balls!”

“Oh! See…”

Just like that, Moon Ki-taek’s mouth twitched as he heard Ji Maeng-ho’s irritated sounds that could be heard all the way to the dugout. That laugh, which seemed fishy but in a perfect mood, was the kind of laugh that would have made Ji Meng-ho throw his bat into the dugout if he had seen it.

[Yoon Seong-tae’s batted ball! It flies high! Out! … Kim Min-jun strikes out Choi Jin-cheol!! … Baek Kyung-ho’s hit! It’s big! Gi Ki-ju, who was a runner on second base, has already reached home! Coming in! Ah! Even Ji Maeng-ho, who was the runner on first base, went home! At home! Out! We catch Ji Maeng-ho! Inning over! But AT Thunders tie the game!]

[Hey, it was almost the same timing. In fact, if it weren’t for Ji Maeng-ho’s quick feet, he would have been out. I was hoping it was Ji Maeng-ho, but he couldn’t come in.]

Although they gave up a score, the inning ended with Ji Maeng-ho’s unreasonable base running play. Moon Ki-taek smiled bitterly once again at that sight.

Ji Maeng-ho, who is no different from the god of base running play, made such an unreasonable play because he thought there was no way he could hit at number 8 or 9, and what it meant was that trust within the team was being broken.

Haha. It’s urgent, it’s urgent. If Ji Maeng-ho, the center of the team, is like that, you don’t have to look.’

Trust within the team is being broken due to continuous losses and falling to the bottom of the rankings. These were the kinds of things that never appear in records, and Director Moon Ki-taek couldn’t stop laughing when he confirmed it.

It might have been a little different if we had somehow managed to win the first game, the first week, but there are no ifs in baseball.

In this way, the game gradually tilted towards Hwasan, and the score slowly increased, ending in Hwasan’s victory.

And the next day, the game went similarly. The game started with a starting matchup between Seonghyun and Bellingham, and Seonghyun was able to win 4:1 by holding Ji Maeng-ho, who was in a hurry, to 1 hit in 4 at-bats.

‘Haha, since there is no clear ace like Crongs, there is no pitcher who can break the losing streak. Well, if it wasn’t for Crongs, he wasn’t a strong starter to begin with.’

However, although Ji Maeng-ho recorded 2 hits and 2 home runs in 3 at-bats against Tinie on the last day, giving up the game, coach Moon Ki-taek’s laughter did not stop as he confirmed AT’s current status by winning a winning series. Moon Ki-taek felt that the AT Thunders were a team that would be difficult to beat unless Ji Maeng-ho happened to hit multiple home runs.

“Heaven is helping us win the championship this season. I can’t believe AT collapsed like this. Haha.”

Just like that, Moon Ki-taek just smiled happily as he watched the fall of his rival team, a strong contender for the championship.