Baseball: A Two-Way Player

The Tokyo spring tournament has ended, and Waseda Jitsugyo performed quite well.

In the second round, Waseda Jitsugyo narrowly defeated Hosei High School 7-6.

In the third round, Waseda Jitsugyo beat Edogawa High School 8-1, finishing the match in just 7 innings.

In the quarterfinals, Waseda Jitsugyo won 4-0 against Shutoku High School.

In the semifinals, Waseda Jitsugyo crushed Nissho Gakusha University 8-1, successfully securing a spot in the spring Kantou Conference.

In the final match, Waseda Jitsugyo once again faced their old rival Nihon University—this was the third encounter between the two lineups over the past year, with each team holding one win and one loss previously. Waseda Jitsugyo lost to Nihon University in the autumn tournament finals but took revenge later in the Senbatsu High School Baseball Tournament semifinals.

Like previous encounters, the match featured two of the strongest teams from the Tokyo Region, showcasing the excitement of a super high school level match.

In this game, Lin Guanglai started as the pitcher for 7 innings, conceding 1 run and achieving 10 strikeouts. Despite being away from the pitcher's mound for a while, he still displayed impressive form.

After nine innings, the score was tied at 3-3, extending the battle to the 12th inning where Nihon University clinched the win with a walk-off hit by Takayama Shun.

Two days have passed since the Tokyo spring tournament final, and numerous reviews of the match have been conducted. Soon, the baseball team will head to Chiba Prefecture, where the entire spring Kantou Conference will be held at Seaside Stadium in Ichihara City.

However, Lin Guanglai is feeling somewhat troubled—during this spring tournament, he encountered significant challenges in his batting.

As Waseda Jitsugyo continues to achieve success in regional and national tournaments, along with Lin Guanglai's rising fame in high school baseball, more and more opposing schools have begun to target him, especially studying his batting extensively.

For Lin Guanglai, particularly in offensive batting, this tournament might be the most challenging experience he has faced in all the events he has participated in during his high school years.

More pitchers from various teams started deliberately avoiding him—either intentionally walking him or reducing the number of direct confrontations during the pitch. In essence, they preferred to let him reach first base rather than give him an opportunity to make a powerful hit.

Although Lin Guanglai felt a bit displeased, he couldn't fault their actions: after all, avoiding a strong opponent is a strategy permitted by the rules; even Lin Guanglai thought to himself that if he were an ordinary player from a school team facing such a formidable opponent, he would probably choose to avoid them without hesitation.

Ultimately, it was due to his insufficient strength.

Under such treatment, Lin Guanglai, relying on his ball selection ability, managed to earn many walks to first base, but compared to powerful base hits or home runs, this approach was somewhat lackluster;

When forced to or when he had to hit, he would force himself to swing at tricky or bad pitches that he could usually let go, resulting in weak ground balls or high fly balls that didn't go far, making it easier for the opponents to execute outs.

After playing through this spring tournament, Lin Guanglai clearly felt his influence as a batter steadily diminishing—even though he could achieve high base on balls and steal rates through walks and ball selection, he could no longer consistently bring runs for the team.

Losing the final to Nihon University was, to some extent, because of this—towards the latter half of the game, Yoshinaga Kentarou barely gave him any opportunities to swing.

One or two games might be bearable, but if future matches continue like this, Lin Guanglai fears he might completely lose his batting feel and form.

In recent training, he has started to increasingly attempt to hit bad balls, but with little effect: the most basic problem is that for Lin Guanglai, who has undergone years of traditional Japanese batting training, forcing himself to hit bad balls easily disrupts his body posture, causing his swing form to collapse, making it difficult to sustain force and produce hits.

"Ah—"

Letting out a deep sigh, Lin Guanglai felt troubled for the first time in a while—to try to resolve this issue, he sent consultation emails to the supervisors and friends he knew over the past few days.

"I wonder when I'll hear back..."

After finishing the day's training and returning to the players' dormitory, Lin Guanglai discovered that the messages he sent had a reply.

The person who responded was Yamada Tetsuro, who was selected by the Yakult Swallows in last year's draft meeting and is currently participating in professional matches with the Yakult Second Team.

[Tetsuro: Guanglai, do you want to come to Saitama this week?]

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Saitama Prefecture Houta City, Yakult Houta Lodge—this location serves as the Yakult Swallows' team dormitory, where newly joined recruits are typically required to live.

Seeing the familiar figure walking out of the building, Lin Guanglai greeted him with a smile:

"Tetsuro, long time no see."

"Guanglai, long time no see." Yamada Tetsuro replied with the same smile on his face.

"You already won the Senbatsu championship—later I watched the recording of that match, you're getting more impressive, Guanglai!"

Faced with Yamada Tetsuro's praise, Lin Guanglai scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly:

"Nah, you're the amazing one—getting drafted by a professional team, you're the top high school graduate player this year!"

Yamada Tetsuro waved his hand: "Eh, drafted or not, besides getting a bit more money than others, I still have to start from the second team."

Yamada Tetsuro's words revealed the hardships and struggles of high school graduates entering professionalism: professional teams choose high school graduates mainly to gamble on their potential; however, until they truly realize their abilities, the so-called potential remains illusory.

Even for first picks by various teams, high school graduates often need to train in the second team for one to two years, gradually adapting to professional intensity before being promoted to the first team, then starting as role players from substitutes or runners; only those historically talented individuals can immediately establish themselves in the first team from the start.

For Yamada Tetsuro, even though he has been performing quite well in the second team recently, he still has some distance to promote to the first team—likely only able to see hope in the next season.

After chatting for a while, Lin Guanglai brought up the topic for his visit:

"Tetsuro, about the question I asked earlier, you said you could..."

Yamada Tetsuro put his arm around Lin Guanglai's shoulder, responding:

"I know you're eager to solve your problem, just come with me later."