In the quarterfinals of summer Koshien, West Tokyo Seidou High School played against Nagano's Hoshiryu High School.
At the end of the fourth inning, the score was 2:0, and Seidou High School took the lead.
In the first half of the fifth inning, Hoshiryu attacked.
In the rest area of Hoshiryu High School, Hosho Ryuki looked at Nanami seriously for several seconds before his face relaxed.
"It's up to you, fourth Batters!"
"Okay!"
Some people feel overwhelmed when they are under pressure, while others perform better when they are under pressure.
Nanami Haruka belongs to the latter.
An Ace and four Batters, such a position brings only motivation to Nanami Haruka.
Walking to the strike zone, looking at the pitcher on the pitcher's mound, Nanami Haruka's mouth muttered.
"It is really unpredictable!"
Originally, they only locked their focus on Sawamura Eijun, and once Sawamura Eijun played, he would not let him be replaced soon. The reason is very simple, Hoshiryu is sure not to let Seidou High School pull the score.
As long as Seidou can't take the lead, Sawamura Eijun can't move from the mound easily.
Currently, Seidou High School holds a slim lead. If was Sawamura on the mound and the score was at 2:0, Coach Kataoka would likely hesitate to prematurely substitute Sawamura Eijun out of caution.
But they made a mistake, that is, Seidou High School dared to let the relief pitcher start in the quarterfinals.
As a result, Hoshiryu was caught off guard!
They didn't do any in-depth analysis of Seidou High School's backup pitcher at all. Of course, this wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was that the pitcher from Seidou High School was surprisingly high-level.
'We can't let you continue to push us around like this. If we want to win, you must pull Sawamura to the mound as soon as possible.'
Nanami Haruka looked up at Sawamura in the outfield.
Sawamura, who was a few dozen meters away, seemed to sense Nanami's gaze and gave him a big smile.
The situation for Hoshiryu is escalating unfavorably.
Should they fail to overcome Tanpa promptly, it will undoubtedly cast doubt among the Hoshiryu High School members about their ability to handle not just the backup pitcher but also the formidable Ace, Sawamura Eijun.
Such a mindset is very dangerous.
It's easy to destroy players' confidence.
In order to prevent this from happening, Nanami Haruka must also do his duty.
The bat in his hand was raised, his eyes fixed on the mound without blinking, his stance was standard, and his position was normal, neither forward nor backward, neither left nor right.
A calm aura appeared from Nanami.
In the position of the catcher, Takigawa Chris glanced at Nanami Haruka cautiously, and then gave Tanpa Koichiro a sign.
'You should feel it, the Batter in front of you is different from the other batter you have met before.'
'Um!'
On the mound, Tanpa nodded.
'Then let's go all out and get rid of him!'
The first ball: the Forkball!
Since he learned to Forkball, this new breaking ball mixed with Straight balls has replaced Tanpa Koichiro's previous high drop Curveball and became his new Tiebreaker.
Moreover, Chris gave Tanpa Koichiro the sign, that the first ball is the winning shot.
Faced with this extremely challenging sign, Tanpa nodded with little hesitation.
He believed in Chris's game calling, and he was ready to gamble on it.
As long as he can throw the ball the way Chris wants, it's sure to take Out batters on the strike zone.
And it doesn't matter who the Batter is, it's the same for him!
The high-raised leg suddenly fell, and at the same time, the baseball in his hand soared forward.
Whoosh!
Like a sharp bullet, the white ball suddenly appeared above the home plate.
On the strike zone, Nanami looked at the ball flying in front of him without swinging.
SNAP!
"STRIKE!"
Nanami's reaction was a bit beyond Chris's expectations. Judging from the feeling of Nanami before, It seemed that no matter what kind of ball Tanpa threw, he would definitely swing the bat.
'But just now Nanami Haruka didn't make any movement…'
Although Chris possesses the skill to discern people's intentions, he does not have the capacity to read minds. His Cold Reading, his reputed ability to read his opponents' next move relies on observing their actions and subtle habits to infer their intentions.
But Nanami Haruka didn't do anything at all, whether it was his position or movement.
In this case, even Chris can't get more information from these things.
He now has only two points of information.
The first point is that the original attack strategy formulated by Hoshiryu should be aimed at the sweet Straight balls that Tanpa occasionally throws.
The second point is that maybe Nanami Haruka was not aiming at the Forkball.
Based on these two points alone, the information on Nanami's attack strategy is incomplete.
He needs more information!
With a plan in mind, Chris gave a sign to his partner Tanpa on the pitcher's mound.
'With a high drop Curve, it doesn't matter if you throw a Ball, the important thing is to force the batter to do something.'
On the mound, Tanpa nodded.
Then he made his stride and threw the baseball in his hand.
Whoosh!
The white ball whizzed out.
This ball, in the eyes of others, is very scary. The baseball simply flew straight at Nanami!
A normal batter would not help but break into a cold sweat when seeing this.
On the strike zone, in Nanami Haruka's eyes, the whole situation is different.
In his eyes, Tanpa Koichiro's pitching was as if the scene of a movie was suddenly slowed down.
Even the baseballs he throws are extremely slow.
So slow, really slow!
Slow enough that he could clearly see the spin of the baseball.
This feeling is very magical, every change in baseball is like a fixed film.
'This is it!'
At last, he entered this state.
Finally, the extremely slow white ball flew over.
Then started to fall!
Moving from the inner corner to the outer corner, falling from top to bottom.
It's like a naughty child who draws a line diagonally.
'To stop this, you have to find the intersection of the swing and the diagonal line.'
For Nanami Haruka, who is now in bullet time, this is not difficult.
BUZZ!
The low sound of swinging the bat swept through everything around.
The time returns to normal.
The white ball that fell at high speed was hit hard and swept away.
PANG!!
Accompanied by a crisp and pleasant collision sound.
The small white ball was hit, then flew high, and finally flew all the way and flew out of the field.
"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!"
In the stands of Koshien, all the audience were boiling, no matter if they supported Seidou High School or Hoshiryu High School.
They were all excited.
How can a home run be missing on the field of Koshien?
From the beginning of the game, they had been looking forward to this moment, but they did not expect this moment to come so suddenly.
Well, it's not too late!
The score is 2:1!
...
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