June 13, 2013, Fukuoka Mizuho PayPay Do.
Although the ga hasn’t started yet, at this mont, the Yahoo Do is already a sea of people — in the stands, nurous SoftBank fans dressed in various supportive gear are interacting with the mascot family of Harry Hawk while fixating their eyes on their players warming up on the field.
Today is a significant day for the SoftBank Team fans — if they can successfully defeat the Yakult Swallows who ca to Fukuoka for an away ga today, then the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks will be the champions of the 2013 Nippon Professional Baseball Interleague Championship!
Considering that ever since the start of this season, the team’s status hasn’t been particularly good, with fluctuating and unstable performance, today’s victory holds trendous significance:
Though the interleague gas don’t greatly affect SoftBank Team’s rank within the Pacific League, in many past years, several teams have started with a win in the interleague gas and then launched a series of winning streaks in the latter half of the season, ultimately achieving a comndable, even championship victory in the official gas.
Having finished warm-up pitching before the ga, Lin Guanglai returned from the bullpen to the players’ area without joking around with his teammates or catching up with friends from other teams in the center of the field as usual;
Sitting down in the players’ area, Lin Guanglai cast his eyes toward the other end of the field — where the Yakult Swallows players gathered.
Unlike the SoftBank Team with fluctuating states but still keeping hopes for a climax victory streak alive, the Yakult Swallows fell out of contention shortly after the season began, firmly holding the bottom rank in the Central League, with faint hopes of advancing to Class A;
Except for young talents like Yamada Tetsuro pursuing starting positions, and foreign aids like Balentien who are in great form fighting for bigger contract amounts, many other players carried a sort of indifferent, casual smile showing a mildly tanking state — this must be what people ant by "many lice don’t itch."
Retracting his gaze from the opponents, Lin Guanglai looked down at his pitching right hand — from the warm-up feedback, it seed his pitching today was in rather good form.
As the ga ti approached, the Eagle’s Vision above the outfield at Yahoo Do also lit up once again as it did on ordinary ho ga days.
Amid the onsite MC’s announcents and the warm cheers of the ho crowd, Lin Guanglai carried his glove out of the players’ area, jogging all the way to the pitcher’s mound at the center of the field — standing in this domain exclusively his, he even felt like waving and greeting the ho audience.
From the pre-ga status displayed at least, Lin Guanglai didn’t seem much affected by the preceding ga encounter, looking quite relaxed and composed.
Unlike the starting lineup from the last ga, in this Yahoo Do ga today, the Yakult Swallows made adjustnts to the batting order of starting nine:
Thanks to stellar performance during the interleague gas, the team’s current main second baseman, young talent Yamada Tetsuro, was promoted by Yakult Swallows’ manager Ogawa Junji to the first batting position — such arrangent thereby indicates that the first at-bat after the ga starts will be a direct duel between friends Lin Guanglai and Yamada Tetsuro.
With the chief umpire’s call, this much-anticipated interleague ga officially began!
In the stands, the ho audience sang Lin Guanglai’s exclusive cheer song once again, constantly exerting invisible pressure on the visiting opponents; Lin Guanglai on the pitcher’s mound closed his glove, exchanged a glance with Hosokawa Kei, nodded, and then imdiately threw.
Along with a vigorous arm swing, the baseball flew from his hand — against the right-hander Yamada Tetsuro, Lin Guanglai sent the first pitch of this at-bat to the high outer corner of the strike zone, a fastball at 151km/h.
Yamada Tetsuro swung the bat symbolically but retracted it completely before his body fully initiated, judged by the presiding umpire as a half-swing, losing a strike count.
Concerning Lin Guanglai’s prowess, Yamada Tetsuro naturally knew — he couldn’t really bla himself for indecisive swinging, primarily because that fastball from Lin Guanglai was so tempting, deceptively feeling easily hittable; when the baseball reached ho plate, however, it turned out to be a bad ball, by the ti his brain realized, his body naturally extended outward.
The subsequent second pitch, this ti Lin Guanglai targeted the low outer corner position against Yamada Tetsuro, still a fastball, but the ball entered the plate slightly more outward angled than the first pitch, aiming to probe the umpire’s strike zone width using this manner.
For such an outer corner ball, often judged as a bad ball, the presiding umpire in this ga still raised his right hand, signifying it as a strike — this left the non-swinging Yamada Tetsuro quite shocked, yet couldn’t but accept such a ruling outco.
This round of duel, Lin Guanglai profited imnsely: not only roughly gauging today’s chief umpire’s strike zone tendency, but also quite easily obtaining a 0 strikes-2 balls advantage.
Catching the ball returned by Hosokawa Kei, Lin Guanglai hid it behind himself, discreetly adjusting his finger grip on the seam, evidently having his own strategy.
Shaking his head several tis consecutively, only when seeing Hosokawa Kei showing the gesture he wanted to see did he agree, and then swiftly closed his glove, entering pitching readiness;
Equally witnessing this scene, Yamada Tetsuro also perked himself up one hundred and twenty percent, fearing Lin Guanglai might pull so unexpected trick on this upcoming pitch.
Taking a deep breath, Lin Guanglai’s whole body rapidly entered pitching initiation, and in an instant, he hurled the baseball toward ho plate.
From start to finish, Yamada Tetsuro’s gaze never left the white sphere, from his viewpoint, the position of this pitch remained —
"Still the sa outer high position as the first pitch! Lin Guanglai repeating the trick! Let’s see this ball, Yamada Tetsuro —"
Having learned from the first pitch’s lesson, Yamada Tetsuro ntally expected and prepared for the ball’s trajectory this ti, thus facing the baseball flying toward ho plate, he swung the bat without any hesitation.
However, besides the flowing air inside Yahoo Do, he didn’t manage to hit anything with this swing.
"Wow! This is a 140km/h change-up! Player Yamada Tetsuro guessed the pitch path correctly but overlooked the speed change!"
"Swing-and-miss, strikeout! Lin Guanglai, a clean and swift start!"
"In this crucial ga for SoftBank Team’s interleague championship pursuit, he’s taken sturdy first steps for the team!"
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