Baseball: A Two-Way Player

Standing on the pitcher's mound, Lin Guanglai rubbed the baseball in his hand with his knuckles—the rough texture of the ball's leather and the clear red stitching were familiar to him.

After confirming the signal with Uesugi Yasuyuki who was squatting and catching behind home plate, Lin Guanglai began his pre-game pitching practice.

The baseball was pitched from his hand, flying along a perfect arc to land precisely in Uesugi Yasuyuki's catcher's mitt, with a loud cracking sound.

After repeating this four times, when Lin Guanglai sent the ball to home plate for the fifth time, the already prepared Uesugi Yasuyuki received the ball, and with a quick step, sent the baseball towards second base.

Matsunaga Kenta, who came to assist, accurately caught the ball and sent the glove towards the second base bag.

After simulating the pickoff to second base, Matsunaga Kenta passed the ball to first base—then the baseball made a circuit around the infield, passing through all the players before finally returning to Lin Guanglai's hand.

With the pre-game warm-up complete and extra balls removed from the field, the first batter of National Academy Kugayama walked into the batter's box, and with the umpire's call of "Play Ball," the game officially began.

As soon as the game started, the batter from National Academy Kugayama swung aggressively, showcasing their strong offensive desire, aiming to seize control and establish an early advantage for their team.

The first batter sent by National Academy Kugayama was a second-year student, Akibe Kenya, who pitches right and bats left, playing as center fielder for the team—Akibe Kenya has a strong ability to wear down pitchers, often entangling the opposing pitcher into throwing dozens of pitches in a single at-bat, then capitalizing on the pitcher's loss of focus and stability to hit a base hit, and bringing back a wealth of information on the pitcher's habits and pitch changes for his teammates.

Therefore, when facing such batters, the pitcher must dare to show their sword, and throw some riskier pitches that effectively suppress the batter.

And Lin Guanglai and Uesugi Yasuyuki, a pitching and catching duo with good synergy, were precisely doing so.

The first pitch, Lin Guanglai firmly attacked Akibe Kenya's inside corner: to ensure his control was sharp and precise, Lin Guanglai deliberately slowed the pitch slightly—a straight ball barely reaching 140 km/h, drilled into Akibe Kenya's inside corner from an extremely tricky angle, flying past close to his body into home plate.

From the replay on camera, the entry point of the ball into the zone was accurately pressed on the high inside corner of the strike zone boundary, if it had deviated even half a ball's width more outside, it might likely have been a ball, or even a hit by pitch.

However, the sound coming from behind home plate declared the result of this pitch:

"Strike."

The scoreboard above Shengong Stadium lit up a green light behind the "Strike (S)" sign, and the count came to 0 balls, 1 strike.

"Superb control, simply too precise—is this really the level of a first-year player?" NHK commentator Sugai Masakazu watched the scene in the live broadcast being replayed repeatedly, and couldn't help but exclaim.

The second ball, the same type—a fastball, but the trajectory and speed underwent significant changes—the first inside pitch, to avoid a hit by pitch, Lin Guanglai could only sacrifice speed for control;

But the low outside doesn't need to worry about that—this time, Lin Guanglai chose to pitch with full force.

On the pitcher's mound, after a series of smooth pitching motions, Lin Guanglai's body leaned forward, his swinging arm cutting through the air with a whooshing sound, evident of the immense force he exerted.

The baseball, breaking loose from his fingertips and flying straight towards home plate, appeared to slightly rise in the eyes of the batter Akibe Kenya due to its high speed, making his accurate judgment of the pitch even harder.

Akibe Kenya wanted to hit, but hesitated—dithering as he was, by the time he actually decided to swing, he couldn't finish the power-gathering motion, his bat wobbled, just barely grazing the ball, sending it foul.

Another green light behind strike lit up on the scoreboard—0 balls, 2 strikes, putting the pitcher at a huge advantage in the duel against the batter, also giving him a lot of leeway.

In the catcher's area, Uesugi Yasuyuki signaled to Lin Guanglai, only to find him shaking his head, refusing his idea; after changing several hand signals continuously, Lin Guanglai still shook his head repeatedly—after quite a while, the third pitch's arrangement was finally decided: the first-year pitching and catching combo of Waseda Jitsugyo decided to go all out, using a curveball as the decisive pitch for this at-bat.

Generally, at the high school baseball stage, few pitchers would use a curveball as a regular pitch type, for the following reasons:

Firstly, the large change in curveball trajectory places extremely high demands on a pitcher's control, comparatively, the straight approach of a fastball is more popular;

Secondly, the large trajectory change also means the batter has a lot of time to react, especially experienced batters, who can often determine the pitch's quality just by seeing the curveball's trajectory;

Lastly, high school pitchers' fastball speeds are generally average, most fluctuate around 140 km/h; and as a breaking ball, the curveball, in the context of inadequate fastball quality, if the batter understands the pitch trajectory, is most likely to result in an extra-base hit.

But Lin Guanglai had none of these concerns:

His control was excellent, and his speed among peers was outstanding—it's known that even at the Japan-USA Goodwill Baseball Tournament, in the Japan High School Team, the only one who could consistently outpace him was Ichiyotai Shintaro from Tokai University Sagami High School.

However, Lin Guanglai is still a first-year student, he hasn't even gone through a complete high school baseball season yet, he has much unexplored potential waiting for future development.

The game of the Dodgers he watched in the United States, the curveball thrown by Dodgers ace Kershaw left a deep impression on Lin Guanglai—the 12-6 curveball's artistic drop arc greatly shocked Lin Guanglai.

Lift the leg, gather strength, twist the waist, rotate, pitch—a series of smooth postures done, the baseball was thrown out of Lin Guanglai's hand accordingly.

Facing the great pressure from falling behind two strikes, Akibe Kenya did not dare to slack off: even though in his eyes, this ball's trajectory was obviously high, he did not let his guard down but kept his gaze locked on the baseball's path, paying constant attention to its subsequent changes.

Sure enough, in the last second before it entered home plate, the baseball seemed to lose all its momentum, plunging abruptly downward—Akibe Kenya seized this opportunity and swung at the dropping baseball.

But the bat caught nothing, perfectly brushing past the ball—Akibe Kenya had indeed encountered pitchers who threw curveballs; on the contrary, he had made quite a few hits off curveballs.

But this was indeed the first time he encountered such a curveball—from the perspective within the batter's box, before the pitch crossed into home plate, it stayed at a slightly high position in the strike zone, finally caught by the catcher in the upper part of the strike zone.

"Is this really a ball a high school student can pitch?"—this was Akibe Kenya's only thought after being struck out.

This was also the only thought shared by the commentators and the whispering audience on site.