Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 440 - 73: Tears of the Pitcher Kingdom

If, during the very first inning of the game, Watanabe Hisashi, the coach of the Seibu Team, could still sit relatively comfortably even though Takayuki Kishi had allowed a solo home run to Lin Guanglai, he certainly couldn’t sit still now.

Watching Takayuki Kishi, who seemed a bit dazed on the pitcher’s mound at Yahoo Dome, Watanabe Hisashi glanced at the bench behind him and quickly issued orders to the pitching coach beside him:

"Get the relievers warmed up!"

"If Kishi continues like this, we must change pitchers no matter what!"

Speaking of which, Watanabe Hisashi first glanced at the electronic scoreboard on the far right of Eagle’s Vision above the outfield. The score of SoftBank 4, Seibu 0 was indeed quite glaring; then he turned to look at Kikuchi Yuusei, sitting at the far edge of the players’ bench with a serious expression on his face, wearing a heavy jacket, and sighed.

What the Saitama Seibu Lions most rely on now, as the coach, Watanabe Hisashi knew all too well:

For the Seibu Team, which has always been known as the "pitcher kingdom," a strong, stable, rich, and deep roster of pitchers is the foundation of their team.

From the great Guos of the 70s and 80s, the Watanabe duo, the four great pitchers of the dynasty period that struck fear into all Nippon Professional Baseball batters, to the Heisei monster of the new century Matsuzaka Daisuke, Yongjing Xiuzhang, and Kikuchi Yuusei, it can be said that it is this unbroken succession of generation after generation of ace pitchers that has supported this team, allowing them to maintain competitiveness over many years.

By comparison, although there have been a number of emerging newcomers in recent years, the level of the Seibu batting line-up has ultimately lagged behind quite a bit—which is why, despite achieving good rankings during the regular season over the years, they’ve repeatedly stumbled in the climax series and found it difficult to claim the title of Japan’s Number One. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Compared to the financially strong traditional or emerging forces behind the Yomiuri Giants and the SoftBank Team, Seibu’s parent company, Seibu Railways, has relatively limited financial resources, making it difficult to outcompete these opponents in the battle for foreign players and domestic free agents; most of the time, they still have to rely on drafts and internal potential for roster supplementation.

According to the original setup, there was no doubt that the young ace of the team, Kikuchi Yuusei, should have been the starting pitcher for this game—entering the fourth year of his professional career and his third year in the first team this season, Kikuchi had his career year with 17 appearances, 9 wins, and 4 losses, and an astonishing ERA of 1.92.

If it hadn’t been for the shoulder injury in August that led to chaotic adjustments and eventually resulted in his season being declared over, Seibu might not have needed to strugglingly lock in a position in the climax series in the very last game of the season—if that had been the case, this game might actually be taking place at their home, Seibu Dome.

With the absence of this key player, Kikuchi Yuusei, Seibu’s starting pitcher lineup suddenly became stretched: it’s not that they lack reserve pitchers, but there are few who can bear the qualifications and pressure of starting an important series game.

Yongjing Xiuzhang has aged and can now only be used as a closer, and Seibu might not even renew his contract after this season ends;

Makita Kazuhiko has performed well this season, but the problem is he is a submariner pitcher, with an average speed of 128 km/h and a top speed of 137 km/h, which is sufficient during the regular season, but in the highly competitive climax series, especially against the aggressive batters of the SoftBank Team, Watanabe Hisashi would rather use him as a surprise weapon.

After some comparison, Takayuki Kishi, who started today, was already the best option Seibu could offer—yet who would have thought, just a few half-innings into the game, he was brutally knocked around by SoftBank’s batters, and now his mind was probably in a daze.

Though the score gap had already widened to four points, the game had just barely gone over four innings, far from the point where the Seibu coaching staff and players would consider giving up on the game; Watanabe Hisashi now just hoped that Takayuki Kishi could stabilize the situation next and strive to complete five innings, which would also facilitate his subsequent pitcher deployment.

However, for the Seibu players, they were dealing with more than just the SoftBank players—the state of the home team in this game was visibly getting stronger, and the fans at Yahoo Dome were becoming increasingly enthusiastic.

Every time a Seibu player was struck out by Shetsu Shou or made a defensive error, the site would explode with a huge sound, relentlessly mocking and pressuring the visiting team; similarly, whenever a home team player hit a base hit or made an outstanding defensive play, the home fans wouldn’t hold back their applause, passionately cheering for their players.

Amidst the new round of cheers from the home fans, Lin Guanglai was once again the leadoff batter stepping into the batter’s box in the bottom of the fifth inning, marking his third at-bat of the game: after hitting that solo home run at the start, he hit a base hit as the second batter at the bottom of the third inning, and then, with the help of his teammates, scored another run.