Baseball: A Two-Way Player

"Without a doubt, this is a blood battle—the players on both sides of the field, whether it's Waseda Industries or National Academy Kugayama, have already given their all."

"This semifinal match of the Autumn Tokyo Tournament has now reached its most critical and fiery moment! No one knows when this game will conclude, as the players are all absorbed in the atmosphere of the game beyond themselves!"

In fact, it's not just the players on the field; the audience at Shengong Second Stadium, the players in the tunnel waiting for the next game, and even Sugai Masakazu himself at the commentary booth have all been completely drawn into this spectacular match.

Many times, a pitcher's battle, due to low scoring, few offensive opportunities, and the fact that the entire game is often fragmented, doesn't make for a visually pleasing game, often lulling the audience to sleep;

but in this match, the pace of offense and defense between Waseda and National Academy Kugayama is fast. From the first half-inning, they began attacking without any probing—though the number of on-base instances isn't high, both sides' pitchers are showing their skills, and the infield and outfield players are displaying their excellent plays, making the audience on site very satisfied, with cheers surging like waves.

In such an atmosphere, the extra innings began.

After nine innings of regular play, Izumi Minoru was considering whether to move Lin Guanglai to right field—having pitched nine innings, he struck out 14 times and allowed only one walk. As an essential pillar of Waseda's defense, recklessly removing him could bring an unknown outcome to the extra innings;

but considering his pitch count has exceeded 120, and if they win today, there's the back-to-back matches tomorrow, Izumi Minoru was inclined to take Lin Guanglai off the mound before the extra innings began—cultivating a good pitcher is a long-term endeavor requiring patience, and Izumi Minoru did not want to burn out Lin Guanglai's potential too early.

However, Lin Guanglai unusually refused the supervisor's proposal: he strongly expressed his determination to stay on the field, wanting to fight with his teammates as a pitcher until the last moment.

Seeing Lin Guanglai's resolute demeanor, Izumi Minoru sighed and grudgingly agreed to his request;

but at the same time, Izumi also stated that if the extra innings don't yield a result in 2 innings, or if Lin Guanglai's pitch count exceeds 140, he must accept the decision to change pitchers, which is the bottom line as the team's supervisor.

To this, Lin Guanglai naturally nodded, indicating his agreement.

The supervisor of National Academy Kugayama, Takara Samurai, made the same choice as Izumi Minoru and naturally received a similar reaction:

As the starting pitcher, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka didn't want to come off the field at this critical moment; to him, being replaced now would feel like desertion, making him despise himself.

Seeing such a strong reaction from his pitcher, the helpless Takara Samurai had no choice but to respect the player's own wishes, eventually agreeing to let him continue pitching on the field.

Like Izumi Minoru, Takara Samurai also set considerable demands, even more stringent than those of Izumi, to which Kawaguchi Kiyotaka agreed without any objections.

Since joining the Saitama Seibu Lions Youth Team in preschool, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka had never been so determined to defeat someone—even though he could clearly feel his body's fatigue, the constant secretion of adrenaline kept his mind exceptionally alert.

"Definitely, must defeat Waseda; definitely, must defeat Lin Guanglai."

The competition between the two first-year pitchers has reached its peak intensity.

In the top of the tenth inning, it was National Academy Kugayama's turn to bat, and their leadoff hitter in this half-inning was the sixth batter, first baseman Nishijima Shin'ichi.

Even in the extra innings, Lin Guanglai maintained his exceptionally outstanding form today—with the active cooperation of his infield players, he eliminated Nishijima Shin'ichi without danger:

When the pitch count got tangled to 2 balls and 2 strikes, Lin Guanglai seized the momentary lapse in Nishijima Shin'ichi's attention, taking a considerable risk, and directly threw a vertical slider into the lower central part of the strike zone.

This pitch precisely fooled Nishijima Shin'ichi in the batter's box, and as he swung his bat towards the center of the strike zone, the baseball heading towards home plate shifted vertically at the same time—

This change directly caused Nishijima Shin'ichi's bat to miss the timing on the ball and merely graze the top edge of the baseball lightly.

Under external force, the red-and-white baseball was "pop" hit onto the soft infield ground, losing most of its kinetic energy, and weakly rolled towards first base.

The first baseman, Hagiyuta Mitsuo, directly came out to retrieve the ball. After securely catching it in his glove, he quickly ran back to step on the first base bag, putting out Nishijima Shin'ichi who was sprinting towards first base.

After pitching more than nine innings, with the decline in stamina, Lin Guanglai's pitch speed and control naturally fluctuated—to deal with this, reasonable distribution of stamina is even more critical, and the need to eliminate as many hitters as possible with the fewest pitches is what he needs to focus on.