Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 412 - 59: A Clean Start

June 13, 2013, Fukuoka Mizuho PayPay Dome.

Although the game hasn’t started yet, at this moment, the Yahoo Dome is already a sea of people — in the stands, numerous 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 came to Fukuoka for an away game 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 tremendous significance:

Though the interleague games 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 games and then launched a series of winning streaks in the latter half of the season, ultimately achieving a commendable, even championship victory in the official games.

Having finished warm-up pitching before the game, 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 meant 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 seemed his pitching today was in rather good form.

As the game time approached, the Eagle’s Vision above the outfield at Yahoo Dome also lit up once again as it did on ordinary home game days.

Amid the onsite MC’s announcements and the warm cheers of the home 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 home audience.

From the pre-game status displayed at least, Lin Guanglai didn’t seem much affected by the preceding game encounter, looking quite relaxed and composed.

Unlike the starting lineup from the last game, in this Yahoo Dome game today, the Yakult Swallows made adjustments to the batting order of starting nine:

Thanks to stellar performance during the interleague games, 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 arrangement thereby indicates that the first at-bat after the game starts will be a direct duel between friends Lin Guanglai and Yamada Tetsuro.

With the chief umpire’s call, this much-anticipated interleague game officially began!

In the stands, the home 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 immediately 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 blame himself for indecisive swinging, primarily because that fastball from Lin Guanglai was so tempting, deceptively feeling easily hittable; when the baseball reached home plate, however, it turned out to be a bad ball, by the time his brain realized, his body naturally extended outward.

The subsequent second pitch, this time 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 game 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 outcome.

This round of duel, Lin Guanglai profited immensely: 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 times 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 some 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 home 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 same 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 mentally expected and prepared for the ball’s trajectory this time, thus facing the baseball flying toward home plate, he swung the bat without any hesitation.

However, besides the flowing air inside Yahoo Dome, 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 game for SoftBank Team’s interleague championship pursuit, he’s taken sturdy first steps for the team!"