Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 515 - 107: Pitching Revolution, the Demonic Forkball (Part 2)

As the "aristocrats of baseball," the Giant Team’s fans are also the group that demands the highest personal demeanor from the players, and any behavior that could damage the team’s image is immediately criticized and booed.

"The Giant fans are really strict..." Lin Guanglai sighed at the sight, but it wouldn’t affect what he was going to do next.

After a short adjustment, Lin Guanglai pitched again: this time it’s an inside fastball again, still at a high location, but it seemed to have some flaws in control, somewhat close to the hitter’s sweet spot.

Seeing this, Anderson decisively swung, but until the moment he made contact with the airborne ball, only then did the foreign slugger who just joined Nippon Professional Baseball this year understand why his teammates constantly reminded him to pay more attention to this young pitcher.

The baseball and bat collided fiercely, and the numbness and pain from the impact made Anderson unable to maintain his batting action. The heavy ball quality ultimately forced him to temporarily change strategy, barely sending the ball to the stands outside the field.

"This ball... Leslie Anderson did indeed seize upon Lin Guanglai’s tiny control mistake, but the problem was that the opponent’s ball quality was simply too immense, completely overpowering Leslie on this side!"

The Giant Faction’s commentator almost ground his teeth while saying this, even starting to dislike this young man; though less than two years ago, he was part of the crowd cheering for this Tokyo baseball prodigy.

Not only the commentator but Anderson himself was quite dissatisfied with his performance on the field: his contract with the Giant Team was only for a year, and even for his own livelihood, how could he be easily struck out by a teenage kid here?

Adjusting his helmet with his hand, Leslie Anderson’s gaze grew fiercer; the Cuban swore silently in his heart that he would unleash his fury with the next ball.

Takeshima Shinya signaled with an outside cutter pitch, wanting to set the stage for a decisive fourth ball; but Lin Guanglai shook his head, giving a different answer.

On camera, Lin Guanglai gestured a special signal to Takeshima Shinya; after seeing this signal, Takeshima Shinya’s face behind the catcher’s mask broke onto a smile, and he quickly set his glove at the lower half of Anderson’s strike zone.

While the commentators and the audience in front of their TVs were still puzzled by the SoftBank battery’s expression, Lin Guanglai had already made his move on the pitcher’s mound.

The front leg lifted high then stepped forward, the whole body rapidly twisting to drive the arm’s swing, the baseball caught between his two fingers was launched with the momentum.

From both the camera lens and Anderson’s view, at the moment the baseball left Lin Guanglai’s right hand, its trajectory, rotation seemed to be no different from his lethal fastball; the baseball flew towards Anderson’s inside corner, as if challenging an open fastball duel.

For Anderson who had pent up frustration in his chest, he unhesitatingly poured all his strength into swinging, his bat fiercely aimed at the ball’s expected high point.

However, at the critical junction where the bat was set to meet the ball, the unbelievable happened.

The baseball initially flying towards Anderson’s inside corner seemed to suddenly hit an invisible air wall, like a pair of giant hands from the ground forcibly pulling it down, the ball did not fly according to Anderson’s preset angle, but quickly sank, skewing toward his strike zone’s outside corner.

For the determined Leslie Anderson, his current mood was one of despair: nothing is more hopeless than seeing the ball, which was supposed to meet the bat’s sweet spot, simply vanish from the batter’s view.

"Bang!"

When Takeshima Shinya caught this forkball with his glove, he felt a sudden chill in his heart: though he’d seen Lin Guanglai throw such a ball in training, the thrill in his heart when catching this forkball in a real game was still overwhelming.

"Thankfully, I didn’t miss this throw, or this near-flawless, record-worthy performance would be ruined by me..." Takeshima Shinya thought in relief.

"This ball... if I’m not mistaken, it should be a forkball... right?" A Giant fan lost his sparkle on the Tokyo Dome stands, questioning those around him.

No one answered his question though, especially when they saw the speed reading on the screen above the outfield, their faces showed shock and numbness that was hard to suppress—

"150 kilometers! Oh my god! What is this? What is this?" The live commentator in the studio asked in an exaggerated tone, "A 150-kilometer forkball, is this really something a human can do?"

As the commentator kept questioning logic, the director replayed the footage and thoughtfully included various data:

According to the on-site recording device, Lin Guanglai’s forkball reached a speed of 150km/h, while also vertically dropping over 30 inches, moving laterally toward the left-handed batter’s outside corner by 14 inches!

What does this mean? Generally speaking, a forkball’s speed is around 130 kilometers; even a fast forkball barely reaches above 140 kilometers.

Now, Lin Guanglai pushed this pitch type’s speed limit beyond 150 kilometers, truly shocking all professional observers.

The reporters at the interview desk were dumbstruck, wishing they could rush onto the field and directly ask Lin Guanglai if he is actually human—if he were, how could he throw a 150km/h forkball? How could any Earthling possibly hit such a pitch?

In the Giant Team’s player area, the Giant players who a moment ago were ready to cheer for their teammate seemed frozen, unable to speak;

Abe Shinjiro’s face turned ashen; as an experienced legendary catcher, he understood all too well what this forkball meant; and beside him, Sugano Tomoyuki’s expression wasn’t good either, clearly, the pitch had deeply shaken his worldview.

"Spectators see the excitement, experts see the intricacies." As Japan’s finest baseball talents, the Giant Team’s players well understood what upheaval this forkball would bring—

A speed 10-20 km/h higher than typical forkballs, a logic-defying vertical drop, an eerie inside corner shift, coupled with Lin Guanglai’s skillful control memory and rich pitch arsenal, is there any pitcher left in Japan who can truly challenge him now?

With sheer fastballs and this supernatural forkball, if Lin Guanglai desires, he can immediately become Nippon Professional Baseball’s top closer: he can indiscriminately utilize this forkball, and no batter can hit this ball on first encounter.

After centuries of development and settling, the art of pitching achieved maturation: built on fastballs as the foundation, breaking balls and changeups form two pillars, together stabilizing an elegant triangular structure—where pitchers and batters conduct endless intellectual duels within this sanctuary.

The only imperfections are the two lingering clouds: firstly, how to further push ball speed beyond its existing limits by 1 kilometer; secondly, how to refine breaking ball control to absolute precision.

People believe, once these two clouds are dispersed, the picture of pitching art will be utterly clear and complete.

Yet tonight, this seemingly otherworldly forkball clearly flipped established notions: when a straight 150-kilometer fastball suddenly manifests powers to descend over 30 inches, how do we define such a pitch? Does this imply that our constant exploration of pitching techniques merely scratched the surface?

Undoubtedly, all present at Tokyo Dome tonight witnessed the birth of a miracle: Lin Guanglai, with his absolute talent and skill, completely subverted traditional baseball logic.