Baseball: A Two-Way Player

With the declaration of "Play Ball" by the umpire at the baseline, the confrontation between Kawaguchi Kiyotaka and Lin Guanglai truly began.

The current situation on the field is two outs, with a runner on first base.

Seeing Lin Guanglai raise his bat in the batter's box, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka on the pitcher's mound didn't hesitate, mobilizing every part of his body to throw the ball towards home plate.

In the blink of an eye, the red and white baseball traveled over a distance of more than ten meters and arrived above home plate — Lin Guanglai, who had been wholeheartedly tracking the baseball's flight path, swung his bat with all his might at the same time.

"Clang!"

With this pitch, Lin Guanglai fully executed his swing, pulling the baseball towards first base, creating a fast-moving line drive.

The crisp sound from the contact between the bat and the baseball made Kawaguchi Kiyotaka's heart sink on the pitcher's mound, immediately nervous as he turned towards the direction of the ball.

The defenders of National Academy Kugayama were also stirred into action by this hit:

First baseman Nishijima Shin'ichi and right fielder Mukai Yuuto both sprang into motion, one rushing forward trying to catch the ball, while the other quickly helped cover any gaps to prevent further damage to the team if the ball got past.

In his attempt to catch the ball, Nishijima Shin'ichi misjudged the height, realizing he couldn't catch the ball flying over his head using conventional methods, he simply jumped towards the direction above his head, intending to intercept the ball within the infield range this way—

Kawaguchi Kiyotaka had already moved to first base to cover, if the ball could be intercepted, National Academy Kugayama could easily tag out Lin Guanglai.

Unfortunately, the ball didn't end as they hoped: the baseball continued to spin in the air, eventually looping directly out of bounds, flying into the stands on the first-base side, causing a wave of astonishment.

"Foul."

Seeing the baseball fly out of play and hearing the umpire's call, the players of National Academy Kugayama finally breathed a sigh of relief: the spin of the ball was intense, and its flight speed was fast, if Lin Guanglai's swing timing were a bit later, this ball would undoubtedly have landed within bounds, forming a long hit along the boundary line to outfield.

Back from first base to the pitcher's mound, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka was sweating profusely—he had put a lot of effort into challenging Lin Guanglai, especially in studying the game footage from the Summer甲 and local tournaments, he couldn't count how many times he watched it, aiming to study Lin Guanglai's hitting habits for targeted strategies.

However, armchair strategy is ultimately just armchair strategy, when standing on the pitcher's mound facing Lin Guanglai, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka truly felt the opponent's strength—the pressure from the real Lin Guanglai was thousandfold compared to what the footage displayed.

Just like the recent pitch, although he had perfectly controlled the ball into the spot the catcher wanted, Lin Guanglai still seized the opportunity to hit and almost managed to make a long shot.

Wiping his hands with some powdered talc, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka took a deep breath to calm his emotions—in any case, the current count was 0 balls and 1 strike, and he held an advantage as the pitcher.

Shooting a glance at his own catcher behind home plate, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka nodded, then smoothly threw the baseball.

Seeing the pitch in the batter's box, Lin Guanglai immediately relaxed his tense spirit: from his perspective, the ball's path seemed a bit low, and it was expected to enter around his knee level.

Watching the baseball enter the glove of National Academy Kugayama's catcher Kikuchi Yasushi, Lin Guanglai laid down his bat and stepped out of the batter's box, ready to wait for the next pitch.

But at this moment, he suddenly saw the umpire behind home plate clench his right fist, then swing his whole arm upwards—

"Strike!"

Lin Guanglai felt very confused by this, looking at the umpire with an incredulous expression: "Huh?"

This pitch, which Lin Guanglai deemed quite obviously as a bad ball, was called a strike by the umpire.

But his surprise and doubts lasted only for a moment, he didn't keep complaining about it.

In baseball, the concept of the strike zone inherently carries some ambiguity, the decision between balls and strikes entirely relies on the umpire's eyesight, and different umpires have varying preferences for the strike zone, misjudgments and even wrong judgments are unavoidable occurrences—the umpire holds absolute authority in a game, raising doubts against an umpire at the scene can lead to severe penalties.

During the study of hitting theories, Lin Guanglai had read the writings of Japan's famous hitter Rokkai Hoshimura—who's currently the manager of the Nihon Professional Baseball's Chunichi Dragons, leading the team to three Central League championships, and claiming Japan's Number One championship after half a century.

During his playing days, Rokkai Hoshimura was a star hitter who achieved Triple Crown titles three times, known for his precise bat control and sharp eye for choosing pitches, he once said:

"If a pitch comes in and you think it's a bad ball, don't mind it, and don't argue with the umpire—misjudgments happen to everyone, the umpire will appreciate a player saving face after knowing they made a bad call, this can bring more invisible benefits to a batter."

For this reason, Lin Guanglai didn't argue further with the umpire, but turned around to continue facing the pitcher.

With the advantage of two strikes, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka only felt his brain flooded with a sense of ecstatic joy—just one more pitch, just one good pitch count away from striking out Waseda Jitsugyo's prodigy!

The excitement made Kawaguchi Kiyotaka's entire body seem a bit tense, and in such a mood, he threw a wildly misplaced ball, high above the strike zone by three to four ball lengths, easily chosen away by Lin Guanglai.

The fourth pitch, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka still couldn't settle down from being overly excited—for the sake of striking out, his inside pitch almost turned into a hit-by-pitch, but fortunately Lin Guanglai reacted quickly and dodged it in time.

Seeing the advantage of two strikes nearly worn out, National Academy Kugayama's catcher Kikuchi Yasushi called for a timeout, then walked up the pitcher's mound to appease the emotions of his own pitcher, advising him not to be overly eager in pursuing a strikeout—whether a flyout or a groundout, eliminating Lin Guanglai would still count as his victory.

Kawaguchi Kiyotaka nodded, then threw the fifth pitch of this at-bat—a fastball heading to Lin Guanglai's inside corner.

Prepared for this in advance, Lin Guanglai settled into his batting stance, stabilizing his body balance with his rear leg, lightly raising his front foot for a large forward step, simultaneously twisting his torso to generate power, driving the swing of the bat.

"Clang——!!!"

The high-speed swing of the bat and the fast-approaching baseball collided intensely as expected, the black metal bat hit the bottom edge of the baseball, sending the ball flying in a high trajectory in reverse towards the deep center field.

The explosive sound from the intense collision echoed piercingly in Kawaguchi Kiyotaka's ears—his entire vision was drawn to the baseball in the air, as he turned around, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka kept praying in his heart that the ball wouldn't fly out.

Admittedly, the quality of this inside pitch was still high— Lin Guanglai had to speed up his bat swing to hit this ball, which also prevented him from completing his swing motion fully, the baseball just lacked a bit more energy to fly out.

Landing not far from the boundary of the field, the massive kinetic energy caused the baseball to bounce high again from the outfield ground, eventually flying out of the field.