Baseball: A Two-Way Player

Lin Guanglai, who scored after returning to home base, walked back to his team's dugout from the field, greeted by the smiling faces of his teammates—it's only the top of the first inning, and Waseda Jitsugyo had already scored 3 points against Kyushu Academy, who wouldn't be happy about that?

In just that one at-bat, Lin Guanglai drove in 2 runs and scored another himself; all the team's points were connected to him. As the team captain deeply trusted by his teammates, his performance did not disappoint their faith.

After celebrating with his teammates, Lin Guanglai returned to his seat, took off his helmet and gloves, and put on the jacket handed to him by the manager handling the scores.

Even though it's already afternoon, as an outdoor field, Koshien's temperature was estimated to be only a little over ten degrees Celsius, making it feel somewhat chilly—players must keep warm when they are not on the field.

Inside the stadium, consecutive points lost made the Kyushu Academy players appear a bit anxious; Coach Sakai Hong'an called for a timeout, gathering all the players on the field together, sending an envoy to the pitcher's mound to sternly scold them for their performance.

Thus, under the dual pressure of trailing in score and the coach's scolding, the frustrated Kyushu players vented their anger on the subsequent Waseda Jitsugyo batter.

As soon as Yagaki Kentaro, batting seventh, came up, Otsuka Shonan quickly got two strikes on him, then tricked him with an outside pitch, resulting in a weak ground ball.

The slow-footed Hagiyama Mitsuo was forced to rush toward second base, but his speed was no match for Kyushu Academy's defense—after losing 3 runs, Kyushu Academy finally ended this half-inning with a double play.

Three outs, both sides switch.

Seeing this, Lin Guanglai stood up from his seat, stretched a bit, grabbed his pitcher's glove, and jogged to the mound.

As Lin Guanglai warmed up with some practice pitches, waves of cheers once again erupted from the crowd—his mere presence on the mound naturally drew everyone's attention.

As a prodigious talent nurtured by high school baseball, Lin Guanglai was already a star in the eyes of Koshien's audience.

After throwing a few pitches, the bottom of the first inning officially started.

In the batter's box, Kyushu Academy's lead-off hitter was already prepared—facing the aggressive Kyushu batter, Lin Guanglai felt no emotional upheaval, simply recalling the pre-game analysis data:

Mizokawa Junren, right-handed pitcher left-handed batter, became the main shortstop for Kyushu Academy last Summer甲—he's a traditional lead-off hitter with a batting average over .300 since autumn, particularly skilled at hitting inside pitches.

If it were a typical pitcher, they might choose to attack the outside upon acquiring this information, but Lin Guanglai was obviously not one to do that.

After exchanging views with Uesugi Yasuyuki, Lin Guanglai lifted his front foot, swung his arm along with his body, and whipped it out powerfully.

"Whoosh—" The baseball shot out from his fingertips, carrying the sound of wind-breaking as it surged toward home plate—the target was precisely Mizokawa Junren's inside corner.

Seeing the ball fly toward his favorite spot, Mizokawa Junren was delighted; as a batter, he naturally couldn't let such a pitch go.

Gathering strength, pulling the bat, making contact.

Mizokawa Junren's movements were seamless, the entire hitting process remarkably clean and smooth, and the bat precisely caught the baseball—at minimum, it seemed this would be a base hit.

Yet at the moment the baseball and the bat collided, only Mizokawa Junren in the batter's box could detect something slightly different:

Wasn't the tail force of this baseball a bit too strong?

The continuous tingling pain from his palm made Mizokawa Junren very uncomfortable, though his forceful motion was executed, and the ball was accurately struck, he couldn't produce a high-quality hit.

The baseball, flying back towards the field, quickly landed and was easily intercepted by the shortstop Matsunaga Kenta; with a light adjustment of his grip, he ensured nothing could go wrong before sending the ball over to first base.

"Pop." Hagiyuma Mitsuo caught the ball steadily.

Less than a minute after the game began, Lin Guanglai needed only one pitch to directly dispatch Kyushu Academy's lead-off batter.

The spectators couldn't discern the intricacies of the play on the field but exploded with cheers when they saw Lin Guanglai handle a batter with just one pitch—especially Waseda Jitsugyo's own cheering stands on the third base side, where soon-to-be college seniors still wore last summer's jerseys, loudly cheering for their juniors.

Yet for the commentators and audience witnessing the entire at-bat from multiple angles, this pitch revealed much more.

Judging by the speed shown on the scoreboard, the fastball wasn't exceptionally rapid—145 km/h was still far from Lin Guanglai's current limit;

But in the face of such an average-speed ball, Mizokawa Junren, highly skilled at hitting inside pitches, couldn't even manage a base hit, demonstrating the power of this pitch: with the same ball speed, the less the baseball's velocity decays upon arriving at the plate, the faster the tail speed, and the harder it becomes for the batter to hit successfully, sometimes even if the bat accurately hits the baseball, a hit can't be achieved. [Note 1]

A second-year high school student achieving such a level of pitching is already astonishing to everyone.

After dealing with Mizokawa Junren's at-bat, the following second batter Shimada Yuudou didn't pose much trouble for Lin Guanglai—he was naturally a tactical-oriented batter, whose threat wanes significantly when the lead-off batter fails to get on base.

With an advantage of two strikes, Lin Guanglai used a very impressive forkball, successfully deceiving Shimada Yuudou into swinging and striking him out, garnering applause from most of the spectators in the stands.

"Ah, truly 'Waseda Jitsugyo's marvel,' watching him pitch is simply a pleasure, so beautiful."

"The drop on that forkball is immense—it's hard on the arm; he should consider throwing it sparingly at this stage!"

"Wow, Waseda Jitsugyo is in great form today; it looks like Kyushu is in trouble."

Amidst the spectators' discussions and the stadium's broadcast sounds, Kyushu Academy's third batter, Yamashita Tsubasa, entered the batter's box—an uncommon switch-hitter, facing right-handed pitcher Lin Guanglai, Yamashita Tsubasa stood in the left batter's box this time.

"Play Ball!" The home plate umpire announced the start of the game.

As the start of Kyushu's central lineup, Yamashita Tsubasa naturally had excellent batting skills, successfully keeping pace with Lin Guanglai's pitching rhythm—after six pitches, the count reached a full count at 3 balls and 2 strikes.

Standing on the mound, Lin Guanglai's right fingers rubbed the baseball repeatedly; he shook his head at Uesugi Yasuyuki, refusing the partner's suggestion of using a breaking ball to decide the count.

For this pitch, he would use a straight ball for the showdown!

Lifting the leg to gather strength, twisting to swing the arm, the entire pitching motion was seamless.

When Yamashita Tsubasa's gaze captured the airborne baseball, his first reaction was its speed—it was unusually fast, disturbingly fast, so fast that instinctively, as a batter, he felt a desire to evade.

Just as he barely overcame this sense of fear and was about to swing the bat, ready to unleash all his stored strength, a familiar sound reached his ears.

"Pop!" This was the sound of the baseball clashing with the catcher's glove, louder than any previous pitch.

"Strike, batter out!" This was the voice of the umpire behind announcing the judgment.

"Wow wow wow wow wow——what is this!!! What is this!!!!"

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!!!! Is this guy really a second-year???"

"That can't be real, it's against the rules, right?"

The atmosphere at Koshien was instantly ignited in a frenzy, and amidst the excitement, Yamashita Tsubasa lifted his head to gaze out toward the outfield—

On the bottom corner of the gigantic scoreboard, the speed of that pitch was clearly displayed:

151 km/h.