Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 466 - 86: Real Men Never Look Back at Explosions

The first three innings of the game have already ended. Lin Guanglai only used 21 pitches to handle Rakuten Team's entire batting lineup. Describing this level of efficiency as merely "high" is clearly insufficient—it's downright terrifying!

After celebrating and encouraging each other with his teammates from the batting lineup, Lin Guanglai returned to his seat on the bench, took the towel and water handed to him by the pitching coach beside him, and began to rest promptly.

Looking at just the numbers of pitches, it might seem like Lin Guanglai pitched these three half-innings quite easily. But if one were to think Rakuten Team's batters are lacking in strength because of this, that would be somewhat arrogant.

In fact, to deal with Rakuten's batters as quickly and efficiently as possible, Lin Guanglai spent considerable energy: controlling the pitch count, using soft pitch techniques to let batters hit grounders and fly balls for outs. Many times, this is harder than striking out the opponent, especially when precision in control is needed.

Moreover, in the normal progress of a baseball game, the closer it gets to the end, the stronger the resistance the pitcher will face:

It's not just because the game is nearing its end, causing fatigue in the pitcher and pressure for the batters to fight back for victory; more importantly, the batters will also exercise their initiative, gathering multiple data points on the pitcher.

What type of pitch is the most threatening today, how much is his breaking ball moving, which type of pitch does he prefer to finish with in specific counts (like after two strikes), how is his control precision... During the face-off with the pitcher, the batters also construct a similar database, entering the game with a clear plan and often delivering a deadly blow to pitchers lacking variation.

This game, so far, Lin Guanglai has only managed to get through Rakuten's lineup once, which in a sense takes a slight advantage from the first-time confrontation; the tests for him will only increase in the second, third, or even fourth and fifth at-bats.

...

"Hoo—hoo—hoo—"

Receiving the baseball thrown back by Hosokawa Kei, Lin Guanglai stood on the pitcher's mound, his chest rising and falling continuously, with a slight fatigue in his demeanor.

On his right at third base, as well as at second base behind him, Rakuten's base runners are poised to dash forward, presenting a stance ready to move towards the next base, awaiting the next batter to step up.

The game has now progressed to the bottom of the sixth inning; the current scenario is: one out, runners on second and third.

As Lin Guanglai anticipated after the early innings, after the slightly probing attack in the first at-bat, Rakuten's batters quickly adapted their hitting strategy to Lin Guanglai's state today, making Rakuten Team's offense increasingly sharp.

For example, in this half-inning currently underway on the field, Rakuten's batters successfully seized the mid-to-late stage of the game, during the first time Lin Guanglai's stamina approached its limit, and hit a valuable base hit from him. Combining with the hit-and-run strategy has turned the situation into what it is now.

With one out and runners on second and third, their upcoming batter is none other than the third batter, Akaikei Ginzou; no matter how you see it, this is a great scoring opportunity.

On the gigantic scoreboard towering in the center of the outfield stands at Miyagi Stadium, the score remains firmly locked at 1:0—under the rock-solid defense of Lin Guanglai throughout most of the game, SoftBank's batters have had rare scoring opportunities against Rakuten's pitching, making this one-point gap seem insurmountable for Rakuten.

"Coach, Guanglai has almost pitched six innings by now. Should we..." Daishiro Oishi, standing in front of the Softbank Team's player area, posed this question to Akiyama Koji.

Even though his words were left unfinished, anyone could understand the hidden implication of the unspoken part: he was asking Akiyama Koji whether Lin Guanglai should be replaced.

In response to Daishiro Oishi's suggestion, Akiyama Koji did not rush to give orders but instead turned his head towards the pitching coach Takayama Yuuji behind him and asked, "Yuuji, how many pitches has Guanglai thrown so far in this game?"

In charge of pitcher rotation and constantly recording the game situation, Takayama Yuuji glanced at the statistics in his hand and replied, "Guanglai's pitch count control today has been quite outstanding—21 pitches in the early innings, 35 pitches so far in the mid-innings, nearly completed six innings with less than 60 pitches in total, I think he can definitely continue pitching."

With the support of the data, Akiyama Koji nodded, signaling he understood, then shook his head at Daishiro Oishi beside him and replied, "Have the relievers return, Mr. Oishi; Guanglai's pitch count control today is rather impressive, so let's not substitute him for the time being... As for the current situation, I think it shouldn't be a problem for him." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"Alright, understood." Knowing Lin Guanglai had pitched just 56 balls so far, Daishiro Oishi also put away his idea of a pitching change; but soon, he raised another question, "Coach, I have another question... Not changing the pitcher now is naturally fine, but if the game reaches the eighth or even the ninth inning and Guanglai's pitch count is still below 100, and the score gap hasn't widened, what should we do then?"