The third inning began, and with it, the cheers from Kasuga's fans resumed. Although their batters hadn't been able to handle Shun so far, Takumi was delivering an impressive performance on the mound.
The inning started with Shoto's eighth batter, Hisashi, in the batter's box. But he didn't last long, on just the second pitch, he tried to hit a sinker from Takumi and ended up being put out with a line drive to the second baseman.
With one out, the ninth batter, Takeya, stepped into the box. Takumi began the duel with a low slider outside the zone, but after the first pitch was called a ball, he had a great sequence of three pitches against Takeya, striking the boy out with his circle changeup.
