Ch 84
10.
cut fastball.
– Cutter? good.
aka cutter.
It is a pitch that shows lateral movement similar to a slider. It is a pitch that does not move as much as a slider, but has a faster speed.
– If you can handle the two-seam and cutter skillfully, you can play equally against left-handed and right-handed batters on home plate. me? I didn’t use the cutter well. reason? No matter how much I research and polish the cutter, I won’t be able to throw that much.
And the cutter fad coincided with the era of the greatest finisher in MLB history.
– Rivera, that’s all.
Sandman Mariano Rivera.
– If you ask me if I can throw a slider like Randy Johnson, I can say for sure. that you can throw But if you ask me if I can throw a Rivera-level cutter, I’ll say this. I think there’s a madman here who drank cocaine.
Needless to say, with the popularity of the cutter, countless pitchers tried to learn the cutter, and they made Rivera’s cutter the absolute ideal they pursued.
– Rivera’s cutter did. There was something special. There is something special about it that goes beyond just what it looks like.
Therefore, many pitchers, baseball officials, and hitters who had to face Rivera’s cutter began to study and analyze Rivera’s cutter.
– First of all, Rivera’s cutter is fast. The four-seam is 95 mph and the cutter is 93 mph.
Jinho Kim was one of them.
– The second is control. Rivera was so controlled that she wouldn’t accidentally put the ball in the middle of a batter’s strike zone. It felt like Maddox throwing a dart wherever he wanted in the strike zone, while Rivera felt like cutting a cake in the strike zone with a knife.
He also studied Rivera’s cutter.
– The third is diversity. Rivera had a variety of cutters. Sometimes I threw a cutter like a vertical slider, and I used it only in the postseason, hiding a special cutter that was only used when it was very important.
and found out
– The fourth and last was… intentionally throwing the ball to split the batter’s bat, not the batter.
The secret that Rivera’s cutter was able to go beyond a simple ball and become a harness that will go down in the history of Major League Baseball.
– And really slit the batter’s bat.
The secret was none other than to produce a performance that splits the batter’s bat.
– That was the real secret. reason? lets think. What is the most important thing when batters attack pitchers’ balls? Yeah, it’s definitely an image of that pitcher’s ball. Swing practice is meaningful only if you practice with the image properly imaged, but if you don’t even make an image, it’s just swing practice if you do a thousand swings and then do ten thousand swings, right?
It was by no means a simple performance.
– But think of it as an image of Rivera’s cutter. Right now, when you think of Rivera, the first thing that comes to mind is his cutter splitting a left-handed batter’s bat.
Rather, it was a highly advanced strategy.
– And for a left-handed hitter, that’s creepy. When the bat splits, it means that the ball hits the thin part of the bat, but what if it hits the grip closer than that? Then the fingers are split, not the bat. The fear that a hitter who has to play for $10 million might be out of the season is imaged. At that moment, a harness that other players hate to hit is born.
For Rivera, it was the most important task to make her main weapon a great weapon.
– Keep that in mind. The completion of the cutter is to split the bat. The moment it splits, the cutter becomes a harness.
and at this moment.
Quick!
“Oh My God!”
“What’s the pitch that splits the bat now?”
“Cutter?”
Jinyong Lee, he finished the job.
11.
At the end of the 6th inning, in front of the cutter Jinyong Lee pulled out, all of the Ravens hitters were in a panic.
“Did something like that happen?”
“You madman, have you been hiding such a cutter until now?”
A sigh escaped the mouths of the Ravens hitters and coaching staff.
Fortunately, right-handed hitters and coaches were able to stop at the line of sighing.
“Fuck.”
“Really fuck.”
“Ah really fuck you.”
But left-handed hitters went beyond sighing and spit out despair.
The cutter a right-handed pitcher throws at left-handed hitters was such a ball.
A ball that overshadows the conventional logic that left-handed batters have an advantage against right-handed pitchers.
In fact, in Rivera’s heyday, there was a time when switch hitters and two-handed batters stood on the right side, not the left side, against him as a right-handed pitcher.
It was clear evidence that right-handed pitchers with excellent cutters were feared by left-handed hitters.
“Damn, I hate the cutter the most…”
Moreover, in the Korean Professional Baseball League, the cutter has not yet become fashionable, so there are not many pitchers who can use it properly.
“That cutter, no ordinary cutter.”
Crucially, Jinyong Lee’s cutter was not just a cutter.
“I got 133 restraints. As fast as a fastball.”
“Suddenly it came into my body. The movement is at the level of the two-seam he throws.”
The speed is 133 kilometers, as fast as Jin-yong Lee’s fastball, and the movement is sharp enough to be comparable to that of Jin-yong Lee’s two-seam fastball.
“Look at the bat split. The power is not normal.”
And a ball powerful enough to break the bat!
Jinyong Lee’s cutter, imaged in the minds of Ravens hitters at this moment, was such a ball.
Bat Breaker!
‘I deliberately placed more left-handed hitters than usual to catch Lee Jin-yong… Now it’s going to be a nightmare.’
‘I’m glad I’m a right-handed hitter.’
Because of that, the minds of the Ravens batters were filled with only that fact, the cutter Lee Jin-yong threw.
So no one raised that question.
Why on earth did Jinyong Lee take out this cutter only after the 6th instead of the 1st?
It was Lee Jin-yong, who made me realize that fact, not anyone else.
At the end of the 6th inning two-game situation, Lee Jin-yong, who once again met a left-handed hitter, drew a ground ball against the left-handed hitter and finished the sixth inning at once.
And, as always, he made sure that he caught the batter with his ears, not his eyes.
“downpour!”
Jinyong Lee exclaimed with cheers.
However, the cheering was completely different from the cheers Jinyong Lee had so far.
‘yes?’
‘uh?’
Jinyong Lee, he said to them, looking at the dugout at third base rather than the crowd at first base full of their fans.
From now on, I rule this game!
Only after hearing the proclamation did Ravens realize.
‘······The momentum has passed.’
Jinyong Lee, the fact that he took out the cutter in the 6th inning was done in a very meticulous plan.
12.
There is a saying that baseball is a battle of momentum.
In fact, not only baseball, but everything that people compete against is a battle of momentum.
When momentum is gained, even the weak can become winners, and when momentum is lost, even the strong can become losers.
In the event of a clash between similar powers, no matter who wins, the side with the momentum actually wins.
For this reason, players and coaching staff mobilize various means and methods to bring or maintain that momentum, and such means and methods are usually expressed as strategies or strategies.
And those who can do such things on their own are often called ace.
Quick!
“Wow!”
– The bat is broken! The batted ball rolls effortlessly in front of the shortstop. Park Hae-young runs. Shortstop catches the ball and throws. The referee clenched his fist.
– It’s out.
And on June 1, Lee Jin-yong was proving himself to be the ace on the mound.
– At the end of the 7th inning, Jinyong Lee finished the inning with a triple strike and continued his good pitching today.
2 hits in 7 innings, no walks and no runs pitching.
– The number of pitches is 81 up to 7 innings!
– It shows the essence of effective pitching. That’s great. great.
– At this pace, I think you can finish 9 innings with less than 100 pitches.
In addition, he pitched only 81 pitches up to 7 innings.
– Enough. Even Lee Jin-yong’s pitching today seems to be getting stronger from the 6th inning.
– Yes. Isn’t it just the second bat right now?
Lastly, Jinyong Lee was showing a more powerful appearance in episode 7 than in episode 1.
– Right now, Ravens batters don’t think it’s easy to score points against Jinyong Lee. What do you think?
– From my active duty experience, what kind of guy is there in this kind of situation? I just think like this.
They were using a 133-kilometer cutter to break their will to fight with the batter’s bat.
“Lee Jin-yong, this is not a joke.”
“Inducing a ground ball against a right-handed hitter with a two-seam, and against a left-handed hitter with a cutter.”
“If both don’t work, strike out with a splitter.”
“Except for restraint, it is a complete body, a complete body.”
At that fact, everyone in the press did not spare their heartfelt admiration and vomited.
“Incredible.”
It was the same with Hwang Seon-woo’s junior reporter.
“Overwhelms the Rayburns, this is his first pro season.”
He also exclaimed admiration towards Lee Jin-yong, who went down the mound after perfecting the 7th inning.
Hwang Seon-woo smiled at the appearance of such a junior reporter.
“The great thing is that you took out the cutter in the sixth inning.”
“Yes?”
“If the cutter had been pulled out in the first inning, Jinyong Lee would have been able to run today’s game much more comfortably. is not it?”
“Yeah, it must have been.”
“But Jinyong Lee rather gathered his strength and brought out a secret trick hidden in the 6th.”
“Why?”
“To bring momentum.”
“Are you awake?”
Hwang Seon-woo, who was talking, now looked at the moving ground to prepare for the 8th inning.
“There is no chance of getting a lot of points in the matchup between Chan-seop An and Jin-yong Lee. Up until the 5th inning, it was a close match, in other words, it must be a game where no one can win until the 5th. And that’s actually what the game was about.”
As Hwang Sun-woo said, today’s game was an amazing level of pitching.
When I watched up to the 5th inning, Jinyong Lee was pitching giving only two hits, and Chanseop Ahn was sticking with a no-hit-no-run pace, giving only two walks.
Of course, no one could predict the outcome of today’s match.
“In such a situation, Jinyong Lee brought the momentum by throwing the cutter in the 6th inning. The moment he threw the cutter, the Ravens hitters who thought today’s game was tight must have felt a sense of crisis. You created a dramatic situation by pulling out a powerful weapon at an important moment.”
In such a situation, the cutter Lee Jin-yong brought out in the 6th inning certainly brought the atmosphere of the game and momentum to the Angels.
“The problem is that there is no way the Ravens can bring back that lost momentum.”
But now, Ravens could not take back this situation, the momentum that was lost.
“It will be impossible for Ahn Chan-seop to show a stronger, more intense or new image than in the first episode at least.”
“ah!”
Then, as if understanding, the junior reporter looked at the ground with an expression similar to that of Hwang Seon-woo.
Hwang Seon-woo, who had such a junior reporter beside him, continued to speak.
“That’s the real ace. It’s not about preparing for the game to get good results, it’s about preparing for the team’s victory.”
At that moment, Ahn Chan-seop came up on the mound.
Hwang Seon-woo, seeing Ahn Chan-seop, smirked.
“That is also the reason why no major league scouts were present before Ahn Chan-seop’s comeback, who was evaluated as having a talent that surpassed Yoohyeon.”
The 8th inning started.
13.
At the start of the eighth inning, the Angels’ dugout was once again filled with tension.
To score, I focused on the pitcher on the mound.
And Lee Jin-yong was also refining his concentration with his eyes closed for the next 8th inning.
Lee Jin-yong’s expression didn’t look very good.
‘It’s not easy.’
I tried not to show it, but I couldn’t help it.
Regardless of the physical strength or not, throwing the ball for 7 innings was difficult in and of itself.
Above all, because he was an ace, he had to win, but he could not be free from the pressure he felt because it was still 0-0.
– Jinyong-ah, is it hard?
Jin-ho Kim spoke to Jin-yong Lee.
– Shall I sing you a song? huh?
At that moment, at Kim Jin-ho’s words, Jin-yong Lee opened his eyes and shook his head vigorously.
– Dude, don’t be too nervous.
Seeing Jin-yong Lee, who was a little freed from the burden at that time, Jin-ho Kim slowly turned his head to the mound.
– The score will come out this inning anyway.
Following Kim Jin-ho’s words, Lee Jin-yong looked at Kim Jin-ho with sullen eyes.
– What are those eyes? Do you think I’m talking nonsense? huh? Do you think I’m bullshit?
Instead of answering, Jinyong Lee changed his eyes to a little more haggard.
– Hey, I’m Jinho Kim!
Despite Kim Jin-ho’s subsequent words, Lee Jin-yong did not release his expression.
In the end, Jinho Kim said.
– Come on, let me show you how great a pitcher I am. Don’t prophesy from now on.
Along with the horse, Jinho Kim said while looking at the mound.
– First of all, Chan-seop Ahn will throw a fastball with the first ball in the 8th. And the speed will be around 150.
At that, Jinyong Lee tilted his head.
because it didn’t make sense
Currently, Chan-seop Ahn’s arrest was lower than at the beginning of the game.
Even if you look at the seven innings right now, not a single fastball that exceeded 150 among his fastballs existed.
By the end of the 7th inning, Ahn Chan-seop’s pitching count exceeded 100.
But throw a fastball over 150 in the 8th?
That was then.
This was Posted in koreanmtl.online
pop!
“Wow!”
“Oh My God!”
With the faint sound of the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt, a startled sound began to spread through the dugout.
“151!”
“Crazy, you throw 150+ balls in the 8th? The number of pitches has already passed 100?”
Then came the concrete numbers.
At that fact, Jin-yong Lee opened his eyes wide and looked at Jin-ho Kim with a surprised look.
– Did you say? More than 150 balls come out.
Lee Jin-yong looked at Kim Jin-ho, who had become weaker, and said with his eyes.
How did you know?
– Simple. Right now, Chan-seop Ahn is full of thoughts of not wanting to lose to a chunky, ugly pitcher. No, I can’t even imagine losing myself.
Lee Jin-yong frowned slightly at the rhetoric that he put towards himself.
– But if you keep going like this, you’re going to lose no matter who you look at? So what should I do? Shall I go to the manager and say, ‘I can’t throw, so please change me to a winning team’? Or I’m alive! You bastards are alive! Are you going to shout that out on the mound?
“Silver.”
Jinyong Lee answered quietly.
– Yeah, so that’s the clenched fist and that’s why it came out with a 150.
Jinho Kim, who was talking, looked at the mound with a fishy smile.
– But if the speed is restored just because of a bit of a sore throat, there can be no pitcher who can’t throw a fast ball in the world, right? Obviously, Ahn Chan-seop’s stamina has already run out. But what about more than 150 balls? There must be some reason.
“It’s over 150, and the ball seems to be moving in the middle?”
“The release points are definitely different.”
At that moment, the batters filling the bench spat out as if responding to Kim Jin-ho’s words.
Because I’m a pro.
Even if there was something wrong, even if I didn’t score even a single point today, I survived as a main player in the first team, the Angels.
– Pitching was started not to give speed, but only to get speed.
Because of this, they could notice that the flame that Ahn Chan-seop is showing now is no different from the flame of a flame just before it goes out.
– Maybe the lead hitter will be out. But suddenly a 150 ball came out. He’ll probably catch the second hit. I’ll catch up to 2 out.
Jinho Kim did a much further analysis than that.
– But you’ll get two outs and then hit or walk against the next hitter. If he gets a hit there, the tension that kept Ahn Chan-seop moving will be broken.
A foreshadowing beyond surprise.
At that notice, Jinyong Lee’s expression hardened.
Because Kim Jin-ho’s eye for making such detailed predictions was more than surprising and horrifying.
– Then it’s game over, and Chan-seop Ahn won’t be able to catch a single out today the moment he gets a hit.
Jin-ho Kim nailed the last nail to Jin-yong Lee.
– Three runs in 7.2 innings. That’s Ahn Chan-seop’s grade today. If I’m wrong, I call you Jinyong Lee, mom, mom.
“Oh, no!”
– All right!
A dreadful nail.
So, the fateful episode 8 began.
14.
It always is.
The bigger the thing, the quicker the collapse.
Chan-seop Ahn did the same.
At the beginning of the 8th inning, he came up on the mound and threw a 151km four-seam fastball with his first ball.
Up until then, there was no sign of his collapse.
No one thought he was going to fall.
damn it!
“uh?”
“uh!”
However, against the pinch hitter who came out for the 9th batter, Ahn Chan-seop conceded a hit for the first time that day.
“No-hit is broken!”
“Oh, it’s broken!”
It was the moment when Ahn Chan-seop’s no-hit no-run broke.
Of course, until then, the Ravens fans watching the game were still confident of victory.
“Zeep.”
“what a waste.”
“I thought we should have a no-hit pitcher too.”
In the beginning of the 8th inning, in a two-game situation, only one batter got on base.
Chan-seop Ahn will take out the next hitter.
I thought it would
“Fuck, that bastard broke a no-hit and spit it out.”
Chan-seop Ahn himself was the same.
He, too, was still confident of victory, and because he was confident, he looked at everything except himself sullenly.
That was the baseball that Chan-seop Ahn had been playing, and at the same time, it was the baseball that made Chan-seop Ahn the representative pitcher of Korean professional baseball.
Of course, Chan-seop Ahn had no intention of changing what he was doing at this moment.
I didn’t even feel the need to change.
Naturally, when the catcher asked for a slider, not a fastball, he strongly ignored that fact.
‘How do the Angels hit a 150 ball? These babies can’t hit my ball. What a slider you’re talking about.’
He didn’t want to play tricks against an Angel hitter or anything like that.
‘Don’t show the level difference.’
Rather, he tried to suppress them by force.
Because it was closer to the word retribution.
But to the powerless, such things could no longer be themselves.
will only be arrogant
damn it!
“uh?”
“uh!”
And the chastisement of the arrogant, the angel’s chastisement began.
“No!”
“Big!”
There were consecutive hits, and the first-base runner landed on third and the batter runner landed on first.
Today was the moment when the Angels hitter landed on third base for the first time.
And the batting order starts with number two.
A moment of crisis for anyone to see.
“Please, let’s take one. Chanseop-ah, if you catch just one, I’ll even give you a kiss!”
“Let’s catch one out! just one!”
Naturally, at that moment, the Ravens fans who filled the Daegu Stadium prayed for Ahn Chan-seop to get out of this crisis.
‘But how?’
However, at this moment, no one could think of a way for Ahn Chan-seop to get out of this crisis.
Chan-seop Ahn, because he was a pitcher with a shoulder that could throw a 150 fastball with more than 100 pitches.
Because that was all.
And now that fastball is leading to a hit.
In the end, Chan-seop Ahn gave up three hits in a row and scored the first run, and then gave up the fourth and last hit to Hong Woo-hyung, who came up after that.
– Oh, the manager is on the mound.
– It’s a replacement.
In the beginning of the 8th, Chan-seop Ahn eventually went down the mound without being able to catch an out.
And at the end of the 8th, now the only main character is on the mound.
– Mama, oooh! Didn’t mean to make you cry!
With Queen’s famous song, Bohemian Rhapsody as the background music.
– Hey, Jinyong-ah, what was the next lyric?
“Shut up.”
– Shut up. that was the lyrics mama! Whoa! Shut up oh oh oh!
“shit!”
‘Even if I don’t want to hear this…’
to finish this game.
“Rising fastball.”
‘I finish with a strikeout of six batters in a row.’
Thus, Jinyong Lee’s one-man show began.
16.
There is a saying in baseball that starts with 2 outs at the end of the ninth.
The game was not over yet, but on the other hand, because it was just before the end of the game, the audience watched the game with anticipation and tension in the 2 outs at the end of the ninth.
It was the same with Daegu Stadium.
At the end of the 9th inning, the inside of the Daegu Stadium in the 2 out situation was holding their breath with anticipation and tension.
However, it wasn’t the expectation or tension for the Rayburns, who use Daegu Stadium as their home.
Conversely, it was directed at the pitcher who came close to dying Ravens on the mound now.
Whoo!
The moment the pitcher caught his last out by striking out using a splitter.
At that moment, the Angels fans, who had become dumb with tension and anticipation, shouted.
downpour!
[You have earned 155 points.]
[You have struck out. Bonus points are paid.]
[You have won a shutout. Bonus points are paid.]
[Currently, the accumulated points are 21,021 points.]
“downpour!”
Jinyong Lee, it was the moment he took a shutout victory in nine innings.
“Heavy rain has come!”
And the reporters who watched the scene posted the article they had prepared and let out a long sigh.
“Hey, that’s great. 3 games in a row shut down! Sambong!”
“No-hit no-run, 10-inning shutout win and just shut down. It’s just a normal shut down.”
“This is going to be a great article tomorrow.”
“The face of Ahn Chan-seop, who was arrogant, will be worth seeing tomorrow. Shall we just go cover the Ravens tomorrow?”
“If it was Ahn Chan-seop’s personality, wouldn’t he just not appear at the stadium? Isn’t that bastard the guy who doesn’t even show his nose on days other than his own selection game?”
It was a sigh of relief that today’s game is over and that the Angels-Ravens series has come to an end.
“Senior, it’s finally over! Ugh, it’s hard to watch the whole game. Anyway, well done. I came all the way to Daegu, so let’s have a drink with the giblets… huh?”
But instead of sighing, one looked at the pitcher clenching his fists on the mound with a more tense expression on his face.
“Seniors?”
Hwang Seon-woo, a junior reporter who was looking at his tense appearance, spoke carefully.
“Is the game over over there?”
Hwang Seon-woo looked at him with cold eyes at the words of a junior reporter.
And then he answered.
“The game is over, but the real start is now.”
“Yes?”
“After today’s game, Jinyong Lee’s scoreless innings became 40 innings.”
“Hey… let’s see where we can see, 7 innings of no runs, then no-hit no runs, shut down in 10 innings, and shut down today, so I came out as a starter and threw 35 innings, and I threw 5 innings with the bullpen… 40 innings It might be He’s a great guy. In fact, it’s at the level of shutting down four games in a row.”
“Now, maybe two games, maybe just one game, might break an unbreakable legend in the history of Korean professional baseball.”
At that, the junior reporter tilted his head.
“What legend are you talking about?”
“One of the legends of the Mudeungsan bomber.”
“Yes? Wait a minute, old man. What is the legend of the Mudeungsan bomber?”
“The legend of pitching without a score of 49.1 innings.”
“Yes?”
“In 1986, there was an opportunity to break the legend left by a zero-point starting pitcher that will never be seen again.”
After that, the junior reporter looked at Lee Jin-yong coming down the mound with the same expression as Hwang Seon-woo.
End