Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 414 - 60: Three Pitches Decide Victory

"160km/h!!! Lin Guanglai! Facing Balentien, who previously hit a homerun off him, he achieved the first strike of this at-bat with a 160km/h super fastball!"

"Look at this ball, its intimidation, trajectory, and position at the plate are perfect from all angles—this pitching is simply an art! For us watching this pitching performance, it’s such a pleasure!"

As the formidable baseball entered the zone from the inside corner, Balentien in the right batting box couldn’t help but step back a few steps, subconsciously letting the ball pass by— for a batter like him who is good at handling inside pitches, even relying on hitting inside pitches for a living, being intimidated by a pitch like this is absolutely unacceptable.

For this reason, as the ball hit the catcher’s glove behind home plate, the previously nonchalant expression on Balentien’s face instantly disappeared;

He licked his lips, narrowed his eyes slightly, staring directly at Lin Guanglai on the pitcher’s mound with a fierce, unfiltered gaze—if compared to something, at this moment, Balentien looked like a cobra seeing prey, hiding in the shadows, constantly flicking its tongue, ready to deliver a fatal strike with its venomous fangs.

Facing such an aggressive gaze from his opponent, Lin Guanglai did not flinch at all and met the challenge: his eyes were straightforward, with no trace of intimidation towards Balentien, only the bullish vitality unique to a young man and the winning aura cultivated from years as the ace—at this moment, Lin Guanglai standing on the mound was like an eagle surveying its territory from the sky, mercilessly executing any enemy invading his domain.

This first pitch was like a fuse, completely igniting the dispute between the snake and the eagle, making the ensuing game even more nerve-racking and exciting.

"Strike him out! Strike him out! Strike him out!"

The audience at the Yahoo Dome was the first to voice their enthusiasm—their unconditional support for Lin Guanglai raised the atmosphere on-site to a new level with almost fanatical emotion.

Only when Lin Guanglai on the mound began to prepare for the pitch, did the tide of cheers gradually subside, and the air on the scene slowly solidified at this moment—they feared the cheers might affect Lin Guanglai, and also showed their anticipation for the next pitch.

Behind home plate, Hosokawa Kei extended his wide, heavy catcher’s mitt to the pre-set location and froze there like a statue;

On the pitcher’s mound, Lin Guanglai locked his gaze on the center of his catcher’s glove, nodded slightly, took a deep breath, and brought his hands together in front of his chest, soon beginning his pitching motion.

His left leg planted firmly on the mound behind his body, maintaining balance and stability; the pivot leg in front lifted high, with the knee surpassing belt level.

As the pitching motion commenced, the center of Lin Guanglai’s tall body began moving backward, compressing, generating enormous, explosive kinetic energy—he was like a drawn bow, taut strings, ready to release.

When the pivot leg lifted high reached its peak, the body swiftly responded with the next step: the hips initiated the movement, driving the pelvis into a sudden forward rotation, the accumulated strength from both upper and lower limbs transmitted through the body’s kinetic chain. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

In the next moment, the pitching process accelerated: after the power-storing phase, the pivot leg, which was lifted high, kicked forward with unstoppable force, stretching straight toward the ground in front of the mound like a steel pin; as the left foot met the home plate, it became a new fulcrum for the body.

The enormous kinetic force driving the body forward and the powerful rotation from the shoulders and pelvis transferred instantly to Lin Guanglai’s pitching right arm—his forearm swung like a steel whip, creating an arc in the air.

At the moment when the arm reached its peak and was about to point toward home plate, the wrist and fingers played their role, completing the most exquisite and final release of the whole pitching mechanism: the wrist snapped like pulling a trigger, and the index and middle fingers applying the last spin to the ball at the moment of release, imbuing the little baseball with new life.

Almost with a "whoosh," before Balentien in the batter’s box could react, the baseball flew out of Lin Guanglai’s hand, into the catcher’s mitt behind the strike zone, once again producing an explosive sound that could ignite the scene—the right-hand batter Balentien stood dumbfounded there until the umpire raised his right hand to call it a "strike," still shocked by the pitch’s impact.

Even for the seasoned professional catcher Hosokawa Kei, with over a decade of experience behind home plate, this pitch caused a slight soreness in his palm, indicative of its formidable power.

Before long, the flames in Eagle’s Vision above the outfield stands reignited as fiercely as with the first pitch; this time, the fire burned even bigger and brighter!

"161km/h!!! Another fastball exceeding 160km/h, and this time the speed has broken Lin Guanglai’s official game speed record!"

Upon seeing the speed on the broadcast screen, the commentator’s voice in the studio instantly rose several pitches, with emotions fully unleashed.

"The 161km/h record ties the fastest pitch by a domestic player, set by Yakult’s Sato Yuuki in 2010. Even compared with foreign pitchers, it’s only 1km slower than the record set by former Yomiuri Giants pitcher Marc Kroon in 2008!"

As the holder of the previous high school and professional baseball fastest pitch records, Sato Yuuki’s absence due to a lingering shoulder injury, not traveling with Yakult’s first team to Fukuoka, was somewhat regretted by the on-site reporters and commentators—after all, the person standing on the mound now, Lin Guanglai, is the one who broke his two records, setting new ones.

The audience took a moment to recover from the shock of the pitch before refocusing on the game—thanks to the superb performance of the previous two super-fastballs, Lin Guanglai now held an absolute advantage of 0 balls and 2 strikes.

However, this did not mean he could afford any carelessness, as the memories of their last encounter were still fresh, and against such a competent and in-form batter, any lapse in concentration could lead to disaster.

Taking the returned baseball from the catcher, this time, when gripping the ball, Lin Guanglai didn’t pursue extreme speed like before; instead, he positioned his hand on the two-seam line.

With his glove closed, he nodded towards Hosokawa Kei, adjusting little, and directly threw the baseball—like the first pitch of this at-bat and the one hit for a home run last time, this was another inside pitch!

The fierce inside pitch was perceived by Balentien at home plate as a provocation: he swung the bat without hesitation, determined to smash the ball and make the young pitcher pay for his recklessness.

However—

"Swing and a miss! A fast forkball! Balentien never expected this outcome!"

"After a slight setback in their last encounter, in a match where the team is just one victory short of the championship, Lin Guanglai directly confronted the super slugger Vladimir Balentien, who had been on a hot streak, resolving him with just three pitches!"

"While for this game and the entire season, it’s just an ordinary out, not particularly remarkable; I think for the young man on the mound, this strikeout should be very significant!"

Yet Lin Guanglai’s performance did not reflect the excitement predicted by the commentator: he merely clenched his fist in slight celebration before preparing to face the next batter.

His job had just begun!