When Sawamura stepped into the strike zone, the entire Jingu Stadium stand was completely boiling!
"Mei!"
"Narumiya!!"
"Sawamura!"
"Demon King!!!"
Supporters on both sides kept saying cheering words.
But there were tens of thousands of people at the scene, and their voices were gradually drowned out because of the chaos. Standing on the field, the only things that can really be heard are those four names.
Sawamura Eijun and Narumiya Mei, the prince of Tokyo and the Demon King!
As if fate, the two stood on opposite sides again.
"Amazing!"
Owada Akiko looked at the surrounding stands in disbelief, the scene was like a raging wave.
Although Baseball Kingdom is a magazine mainly based on high school baseball, this does not mean that they have not dabbled in professional baseball. During the period of joining, Akiko followed Fujio, and also interviewed some professional baseball players one after another, and saw some professional baseball games.
The game of professional baseball is different from the game of high school. For example, in high school, most people support one of the two high school teams.
There are too many teams in high school, and every audience member has an identity. What region are they from? Which high school did you even graduate from?
These are directly related to the team they support.
There are also the alma mater, acquaintances, and regions…
Professional baseball teams are different, there are only so many in the country.
And unlike high school baseball, the team's die-hard supporters are not that kind of diehard. Most of them also support stars, not teams!
But even in a professional baseball environment, it's hard to hear this kind of evenly matched cheers.
What they support right now is no longer Seidou High School and Inashiro Industrial, but Tokyo Prince Narumiya Mei and Demon Lord Sawamura Eijun.
"It's really bad!"
As a batter, Sawamura faced off against a pitcher like Narumiya.
The situation is of course extremely unfavorable for Sawamura.
Whether it's Narumiya or Sawamura, the skills of the two in batting should not be underestimated.
Narumiya himself is the fifth Batter of Inajitsu.
The same is true for Sawamura. Originally, Sawamura was the fifth batter of Seidou High School.
Only in this game, he was adjusted to the third batter.
But whether it is the fifth or third, these two positions are the core hitting positions of the team.
From this, it is not difficult to see that Coach Kataoka trusts Sawamura's swing.
Both batting are strong!
But it also depends on what it is compared to. Compared with the pitching of the two, the hitting level of the two is not that high.
Such a confrontation is not fair to Sawamura.
But there is no other way, no matter whether it is fair or not, now he is on fire and has to struggle.
'Come on, Mei-san, let me see how much you evolved?'
On the strike zone, Sawamura raised the bat in his hand high, posing for a head-to-head fight.
In the position of the catcher, Harada had no doubts about Sawamura's determination to fight head-to-head.
In fact, the current situation is already two Outs with no one on base.
Even if Sawamura didn't want to face off head-to-head, he couldn't help it.
'Let's get rid of him head-on.'
Thinking about it, Harada decisively gave a sign to Narumiya on the pitcher's mound, asking him to deal with Sawamura head-on.
Now the atmosphere on the field has clearly soared. All the audience is looking forward to the result of the showdown between Sawamura and Narumiya.
In fact, it is more than the audience at the scene. In front of the TV and the Internet stream, many audiences are waiting to see the two players duel.
On the first day of being grouped up from the West Tokyo Competition, such a battle was hyped up.
Now, they are finally going to witness it!
In the rest area of Seidou High School.
Coach Ochiai caressed his goatee. He glanced lightly at Kataoka who was standing in front of him.
'He moved Sawamura to the third Batter.'
Kataoka has not discussed this matter with the rest of the coaching staff.
From the point of view of ability, it is not wrong for Sawamura to play as the third batter before Yuuki.
Even theoretically speaking, the probability of Seidou High School's score will be improved a lot.
'In terms of attacking strength and skills, there is no problem in placing Sawamura in the third hole.'
Although Coach Kataoka did not discuss it with the coaching staff in advance. But Ochiai did not object to the transfer of Sawamura to the third.
Isashiki Jun's hitting is also good, but compared to Sawamura's steady on-base rate is higher.
If it were him, he might have done it long ago.
The keywords are, long ago, not right now.
'There's nothing wrong with this approach, but right now, I really don't know if it's bad luck, or it was a wrong choice.'
Before the start of the game, everyone thought that the victory or defeat between Sawamura and Narumiya would have to wait for a few rounds before there were signs of it.
After all, both of them are the Ace pitchers of their respective teams, and scoring offense is not their main responsibility.
However, the evolution of the current direction of the game is not as they originally expected.
The first head-to-head confrontation between the two directly became one of the criteria for the outcome.
'If he lost badly in the duel and this affected his pitching, it would be a huge loss! In this situation, I would have placed Sawamura in the ninth hole.'
Sawamura's Pitch into Narumiya's pitch is definitely not that easy to hit.
In the same way, if Narumiya Mei was replaced to hit Sawamura's pitching, he would be equally bad at it, right?
It's just that Seidou High School's luck was a bit bad. In the first inning, Seidou was the first to attack, and Sawamura just adjusted to the third in advance.
If Sawamura loses in such a head-to-head confrontation, the entire morale of Seidou High School will definitely be greatly affected.
In the face of such a dangerous situation, Sawamura himself was very calm, the bat in his hand was raised high and kept swaying.
Bring it on!!!
Just looking at Sawamura's waiting for the ball, it seemed like he could hit no matter what ball came over.
While preparing to catch Mei's ball, Harada observed Sawamura in the strike zone.
Regardless of what Sawamura really thinks, Sawamura's appearance on the strike zone is full of confidence.
Judging from the data that Inashiro had collected before, Sawamura's batting was also a very strange one.
As far as swing is concerned, Sawamura's swing is definitely not strong, and his batting skills are not very good.
But the strange thing is that he seems to have his own way of dealing with any ball.
It feels like a battle-hardened veteran. In terms of strength, he may not have many advantages, but such a veteran has a much higher probability of surviving on the battlefield than other soldiers.
In all aspects of the attack, Sawamura has no advantage. But the strange thing is that he seems to be able to hit the ball no matter what he hits.
Experience!
'He is very strange, only a middle school softball league competition, a National Champion yes, but can such a player really grow to this level?'
'The opponent's momentum is very strong, you can't take it lightly, let's throw some tricky courses!'
Right now, Harada Masatoshi was unknowingly captured by Sawamura's aura.
Narumiya Mei on the pitcher's mound pouted in contempt.
'Masa-san sometimes really thinks too much.'
'There's nothing wrong with Sawamura's terrifyingly high hit rate.'
'But through the analysis of the previous data, can't it be seen that this guy is only good against weak balls?'
'All the balls that Sawamura hit are extremely tricky Breaking balls.'
On the surface, he is indeed a talent for hitting the Breaking ball! But on the other hand, this does also prove that Sawamura's lack of batting power is a serious flaw.
'To deal with such an opponent, it is necessary to attack him with a strong ball.'
Whoosh!
The white ball flew over, extremely sharp, Straight towards the middle of the zone.
Sawamura on the strike zone suddenly changed.
While grinning, he opened his stance to swing with full power, the bat in his hand aimed precisely at the middle of the zone.
"Gotcha!"
…