Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 605 - 150: Punitive Pitching (Part 2)

As for the Hanshin Tigers, Fujinami Jintaro was quickly brought up to the major league to receive professional baseball training as soon as he entered the league. Over the past three seasons, he pitched 24, 25, and 28 games respectively, including more than seven complete games in a single season.

Even though he has continuously led the league, or even topped it, in four-bad-ball walking, hitting batters, and wild pitches for three seasons straight, the Hanshin Tigers' pitching team has focused only on flashy stats like ERA and strikeouts, without making any improvements on his potential weaknesses.

It wasn't until this season, when problems erupted, that they hurriedly tried to address them. However, the proposed solutions were not scientifically founded but consisted more of senseless modifications to his pitching mechanics and making him pitch more, which only made Fujinami's situation worse.

In the eyes of Lin Guanglai, a former rival, the current Fujinami has become overly cautious due to his concern with control, and has lost his former strengths.

Looking at it from a player development perspective, one can see why the Hanshin Tigers, despite their fame, have such a pitifully small number of championships:

Compared to the Giant Team, known for their professionalism, the high management and supervisors of the Hanshin Tigers have always stayed in the retro Showa era with their team operation strategy—they believe that merely relying on spirit and players' willpower can overcome all odds to win matches, even employing various rough methods in the name of what's best for players along the way.

Just like their current supervisor Kanamoto Tomohiko, who was regarded as an 'Iron man' and 'tough guy' in his player days, he brought that Showa charm to the team after becoming the Hanshin supervisor. His rough development methods and tough leadership style have been criticized by many, including players.

But at this moment, Lin Guanglai couldn't imagine what kind of insane actions this relic of the Showa era could actually carry out...

At 6 PM that evening, amidst the thunderous cheers of Hanshin fans at Koshien, the final series of the 2016 interleague games kicked off: in the previously concluded games, Chiba Lotte had secured victories, closing the win gap to 0.5 games, which forced the SoftBank Team to win at least two games to ensure an interleague victory.

As a result, from the first half inning, the red-hot lineup members were in form right from the start of the game:

This season, Supervisor Kodama Komei focused on transforming the team's main shortstop Imamiya Kenta. Unlike former Manager Akiyama's strategy of long-term using Imamiya Kenta as a second batter bunter, Supervisor Kudo gave Imamiya more opportunities to hit, letting him serve as the leading batter.

Imamiya Kenta did not disappoint the trust placed in him by Supervisor Kodama. Facing Fujinami Jintaro, he took advantage of Mr. Fujinami's control weakness in his first at-bat, easily drawing a walk to get on base—over at the first base Hanshin Tigers' bench, their Supervisor Kanamoto Tomohiko put on a sour face upon seeing this.

And when Fujinami Jintaro, after giving up 3 runs, finally got the needed 3 outs in the first inning and returned to the bench, he was met with a storm of verbal abuse:

'Fujinami, what on earth is wrong with you today! Have I not said that giving away walks at the beginning is unacceptable? The whole team's rhythm is thrown off because of your consecutive walks—you are the type of player for whom achieving 10 wins wouldn't be surprising; being hit hard in direct confrontations can be understandable, but what about pitching four-balls? Get your spirits up!'

Just as Fujinami Jintaro hung his head and returned to his seat on the bench, Kanamoto Tomohiko added fuel to the fire, announcing his decision for the day in front of all the Hanshin players: 'Bullpen pitchers won't warm up today, Fujinami, you just keep pitching, no matter how many runs you give up, keep pitching until I'm satisfied, or until your condition improves!'

With this statement from Kanamoto Tomohiko, Fujinami Jintaro's nightmare for the night, or perhaps even a turning point in his career, began.

Perhaps influenced by the commotion that had just happened in the player's box, not just Fujinami, who was on the mound today, but even the Hanshin fielders showed wavering performance on the field:

In the second inning, with two outs, Hanshin's left fielder Egawa Taiga made an extremely basic error by failing to catch a routine pop-up, directly giving SoftBank a run;

In the third inning, second baseman Yamato made another error while handling the ball, allowing Imamiya Kenta, who was supposed to be panned, to walk to first base. This was followed by a sacrifice fly with one out and a man on third, giving up another run.

In theory, with the starting pitcher's obvious loss of control, a supervisor would most likely choose to replace them at this time; however, Kanamoto Tomohiko was indeed enacting his words from the player's box—he had made up his mind, as long as he wasn't dead, Fujinami was to finish this game!

From subsequent performance, Fujinami Jintaro seemed to gradually regain his form: starting from the fourth inning, his control became much more stable, even achieving a three-up-three-down for two consecutive innings; and in this process, the Hanshin Tigers also managed to close the score gap to 3 runs.

By the end of the seventh inning, the score stood at 2:5, with host Hanshin trailing the visiting SoftBank by 3; meanwhile, Fujinami Jintaro, who started today, had already thrown an astonishing 131 pitches, and his face showed undisguised exhaustion.

'Hanshin should be changing pitchers now... batters get ready, aim to extend the score gap when their new pitcher is fresh!' In the SoftBank dugout, Supervisor Kodama Komei gave orders to the players behind him.

Even Hanshin Faction commentators expressed the same view as Supervisor Kodama Komei: 'Well, even though Fujinami started off wildly, he clearly adjusted later—after 131 pitches, the pitcher should be really tired, it's time to bring on the main bullpen guys and compete with SoftBank!'

However, to everyone's surprise, when the Hanshin lineup rotated to the ninth batter pitcher in the bottom of the seventh, Kanamoto Tomohiko did not switch to a pinch hitter as SoftBank expected. Holding a bat and standing in the batter's box was still Fujinami Jintaro!

'Eh? Manager Kimoto hasn't changed the pitcher yet... Can Mr. Fujinami really keep pitching?' Such voices echoed from the die-hard stands of the Hanshin Tigers.

Some of the older fans even directly cursed: 'Damn Kimoto, aren't you going to change the pitcher yet? Trailing by 3 runs with a pitcher who's thrown over 130 pitches and has poor control on the mound, what the hell are you thinking?'

Even Lin Guanglai, who grew up watching Kanamoto Tomohiko play, couldn't resist cursing back 'Crazy' after witnessing this scene. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Clearly with just a 3-run gap, clearly when the starting pitcher is exhausted both mentally and physically, yet solely for the sake of training that so-called 'temperament', employ such Spartan methods on the player... should such things really exist in modern baseball?

Exhausted Fujinami, with unstable control in the top of the eighth inning, threw pitches markedly higher—ultimately, due to two walks, the bases were loaded with two outs; and then Lin Guanglai, who appeared afterward, took advantage of the now powerless ball, sending it into the right field bleachers with a grand slam, putting a complete end to this game.

When Fujinami Jintaro was quietly withdrawing from the mound at the end of the top of the eighth inning, his performance in the game was fixed at 8 innings, 13 strikeouts, 7 hits, 9 runs allowed, and 161 pitches.

Whether it was the heavens sensing the unfolding events at the stadium, after the end of the eighth inning, a fine drizzle began to fall over Koshien.

Fujinami Jintaro, once the awe-inspiring powerhouse pitcher during his high school days at Koshien, silently withered in the rain.