Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 377 - 26: Sympathy for Fellow Sufferers

As the manager of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks first team, Akiyama Koji hasn’t been having an easy time lately.

The coaching staff spent a long time researching and consulting many experts’ opinions to mostly resolve Lin Guanglai’s usage issues, but a new problem has arisen—and this new issue is even more serious and urgent than the one with Lin Guanglai:

Since winning the opening game 7-1 against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, the SoftBank Team has not won a game, suffering a five-game losing streak and dropping to the bottom of the Pacific League standings. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Even more troubling for Akiyama Koji than this, is the major issues with the team’s starting rotation pitchers:

On March 30th, SoftBank lost 1-3 to Rakuten, with ace starting pitcher, 2012 Eiji Sawamura Award winner Shetsu Shou, allowing 3 runs in 6 innings, with 2 earned runs;

On March 31st, SoftBank lost 1-9 to Rakuten, with last year’s first-team pitcher Takeda Shouta, who had an outstanding 8-1 record and a 1.07 ERA, allowing 5 runs in 4 innings, with 5 earned runs;

On April 2nd, SoftBank lost 1-4 to Seibu, with the team’s second ace, Oonari Kenji, who also made the Japan National Team for the World Baseball Classic, allowing 4 runs in 6 innings, with 4 earned runs;

On April 3rd, SoftBank lost 2-6 to Seibu, with the promising rookie Yamashita Hiroshi, who had a great pre-season, allowing 4 runs in 3.1 innings, with 4 earned runs;

On April 4th, SoftBank lost 1-3 to Seibu, with the foreign player Vicent Padilla, signed for nearly 300 million yen, allowing 3 runs in 5 innings, with 3 earned runs.

If the poor performances of the two ace pitchers Shetsu Shou and Oonari Kenji can be attributed to the influence of the World Baseball Classic, making it somewhat understandable, then how do we explain the other starting pitchers’ conditions?

Let’s not forget, the players chosen by Akiyama Koji for the starting rotation in the first week of the opening games were either stalwarts with consistent performance over several seasons or newcomers and fringe players who performed exceptionally during spring training and pre-season games. Yet once it came to official games, most of them couldn’t even fulfill a pitcher’s basic role of innings consumption and were thoroughly dominated by the opponents.

The ecosystem of Nippon Professional Baseball tends to showcase high-quality pitching and lower batting averages. When our starting pitchers frequently give up runs early in games, it puts considerable pressure on our batting line-up, further affecting the team’s overall performance.

Before the start of the new season, no matter how much Akiyama Koji racked his brains, he wouldn’t have thought that the best-performing pitcher in the first team since the season started would be Lin Guanglai, the high school graduate. It’s utterly baffling!

The poor performance results in pressure from both management and fans. Even though in the past four years, Akiyama Koji has led the team to win the Pacific League twice, secured one Japan’s Number One title, and never missed the climax series, if the current state of the team continues, even a distinguished coach like him can’t guarantee his position remains secure.

This is the harsh reality of professional baseball—no matter how significant your past contributions to the team, professional baseball ultimately only cares about results—only victories can solidify your position.

Staring at the thick pile of data and reports in front of him, Akiyama Koji sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"We’ll just have to take it one step at a time... In the next week, I’ll give more people a chance. Hopefully, things will improve..."

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[Lin Guanglai: Are you starting in tonight’s game?]

[Ohtani Shohei: I’ll probably be playing as the right fielder... As for pitching, I’m not as good as you at controlling the ball. I’ve been pitching in the second team recently, and it’ll probably be a while before I start officially in the first team.]

[Ohtani Shohei: Why? Are you trying to scout our team’s game plan? Let me tell you, I won’t hold back in tonight’s game—Kuriyama, our manager, is under a lot of pressure due to recent results, and our Ham Team is very determined to win!]

[Lin Guanglai: Your words... Although both of our teams have had a rough start, at least your Ham Team won one more game than our Hawks. If anything, I should be the one saying that.]

[Lin Guanglai: Honestly, before turning pro, I had some awareness that professional games wouldn’t be easy; but it’s much tougher than I imagined...]

[Ohtani Shohei: Same here, but isn’t that the point of us entering professional baseball? If you want a comfortable life, going to college would be the best option, right?]

[Lin Guanglai: You’re right... which is why in tonight’s game, I won’t let you get even a single hit!]

[Ohtani Shohei: Haha, talk is cheap, but I’m hoping to hit my first professional home run off you!]

"Guanglai, have you packed your things? If you have, come on out, we’re about to head to Sapporo!" Teammates called out from outside. Upon hearing them, Lin Guanglai sent a farewell message to Ohtani Shohei before quickly turning off his phone and grabbing his luggage to head out.

As the previous Pacific League champions and Japan Series runners-up, the Ham Team has also not had a great start this new season: they started off with 2 wins and 4 losses, just one game ahead of SoftBank, who suffered a five-game losing streak. Both clubs can be said to be in the same boat.

Coincidentally, the upcoming game is a match between the last and second-to-last teams—a "bottom-of-the-mountain showdown." Any one of the three games in this series could have a huge impact on the current standings and the overall morale of the teams, making it very important.

The atmosphere within the SoftBank Team hasn’t been particularly good lately, and Lin Guanglai is well aware of that:

Before the season started, the first team’s goal was to win the Pacific League and to bring back Japan’s Number One title, which they hadn’t won in a year, to Fukuoka. But just a week into the season, the team has already lost five consecutive games, and all their grand ambitions have been harshly dampened by the cold reality.

The continuous losses have somewhat affected the players’ morale, and Lin Guanglai is no exception. He played three years in high school baseball, and probably only lost slightly more games in total—it’s a situation he’s never encountered before, and it’s hard not to feel some sense of disappointment.

So how can the team’s morale improve? The answer is actually quite simple: by winning!

Winning unites everyone and rejuvenates the entire team’s spirit—and fortunately, Lin Guanglai has considerable experience with winning.