To the Battlefield (3)
"Nice pitching!"
"Thanks."
After finishing the top of the first, I exchanged a few words with our catcher, Matsuda Masahiro, and headed back to the bench.
"That high fastball looked good."
"Yeah. When it rides up and away like that, it's tough for a hitter to do much with it."
Matsuda and I kept talking through the pitches. I wasn't just chasing velocity today — I was paying real attention to command and deception. And just as important: the chess match itself, reading my own condition and adjusting the plan pitch by pitch. Landing a finished catcher like Matsuda was pure luck on that front.
"All right — let's go score some runs!"
Now batting, shortstop, Shirakawa.
Shirakawa Satoru strode to the plate looking ready for a fight.
"…"
Of course.
Whap!
"Strike!"
Crack!
"Foul!"
Shirakawa was already working hard. Today's opposing pitcher was not the kind you simply walked up and dismantled.
Crack!
"Foul!"
A slider running away. The batter barely managed to cut it foul.
The other starter was a lefty who could touch the low 140s with his fastball. Not overwhelmingly dominant — but still.
Filthy.
Between the scouting report our team had already put together and the little warm-up I'd watched earlier, he was the kind of arm that made standing in the box exhausting.
Japanese pitchers leaned hard into deception out of the kick, and this lefty from Hoinichi High hid the ball almost until the last possible instant. His delivery never broke down, either, so the command stayed clean.
Crack!
Shirakawa finally put one in play. His face said he wasn't happy about it.
"Out!"
A two-hopper to the second baseman — no amount of speed was going to beat that out. Just like that, our leadoff chance was gone.
"So close!"
"At least you ran up his pitch count a little."
"Haa…"
Shirakawa passed a few notes to our number-two hitter, Minamino Shintaro, then came back to the bench.
"The ball just kind of pops out of nowhere. First time seeing him — he's a pain."
"That bad?"
"We should work the count and take him apart slowly."
"Slider to lefties, changeup to righties?"
The hitters started trading quiet observations.
"…"
I'm a hitter too, sure.
But I was also today's starter. My job was simple: keep their lineup locked down from the mound. Their pitcher had made a statement against our first batter — but I still didn't see him going nine scoreless.
Crack!
"Ah, come on!"
"Please!"
Seisho's number-three hitter, Kazuma Junpei, drove one. Voices rose from the stands, begging for a foul.
"Ahh!"
Instead it settled into a foul fly for the first baseman.
"Close."
"Even Kazuma went down easy…"
"Hmm…"
The Seisho supporters and managers watching from the dugout side. Second-year manager Nagasawa Haruka couldn't hide the worry in her eyes.
"Haru-chan, anyone watching would think the game was already over."
"Ah! Yes! Sorry — ow!"
Third-year lead manager Fukada Riko gave Haruka a light swat on the rear. Color flooded Haruka's face as she checked whether anyone had seen — but Riko had screened the hit, and no one had.
"Snap out of it. All we can do is cheer."
"Yes…"
Riko's face was full of quiet confidence in the baseball team.
"Hongo-senpai!"
"Hongo!"
"Let's go!"
"…"
Top of the second — Seisho on defense again. As jersey number 18, Hongo Yukihisa, stepped onto the rubber, the calls of his name swelled. After Seisho's powerful lineup had gone down limp in the bottom of the first, the crowd was hanging its hopes on him.
Hongo…
Haruka felt much the same. If they gave up the first run here, the game could spiral into something ugly.
Now batting, pitcher, Inoki.
Stepping in was Hoinichi High's ace and cleanup hitter — third-year Inoki Genzaburo. Not a huge frame, but he carried himself with a dense, solid presence.
None of that mattered to Yukihisa. He wound up, drove off the rubber, and let it fly.
Whap!
"Strike!"
A fastball painted the outer edge, full and firm.
"One-fifty-three!"
"Insane as always."
The velocity the crowd had been waiting for.
Whap!
"Strike!"
A curve that broke hard in on the lefty. The hitter's posture nearly collapsed as he swung through it.
An overwhelmingly pitcher-friendly 0–2 count. Yukihisa didn't hesitate for a second.
Whap!
A diving splitter. The bat cut nothing but air.
"Strike three!"
Three pitches. The opposing ace and cleanup hitter, gone on strikes.
"Whoaaaaa!"
"That splitter is unreal."
"To dismantle the four-hole like that…"
Genzaburo at least kept his composure — no visible frustration from an ace. But Yukihisa's dominance was the real thing.
"Amazing."
"Yeah! Hongo is seriously strong."
Haruka and Riko both looked awed. The thin bottom of the first was already fading from memory, replaced by the clean, decisive shape of Yukihisa's pitching.
Whap!
"Strike three!"
Whap!
"Strike three!"
The last one was a 153 km/h fastball. Yukihisa had just put up another three-up, three-down inning — and six consecutive strikeouts to open the game.
Whap!
"Ball!"
"…"
"Yes!"
Bottom of the second. Seisho High 0, Hoinichi High 0.
Leading off, our cleanup hitter Matsuda worked a walk. He laid off a changeup the pitcher had clearly wanted on the outer edge, and with Hoinichi's battery already nibbling a little, the free pass came.
Now batting, right fielder, Sanada.
Nobody on, first and — wait, first base occupied. Sanada Atsushi stepped in with a man on first and nobody out.
"…"
How are they going to pitch him?
I watched from the on-deck circle, bat in hand. Matsuda, for all that raw power, was almost unbelievably sharp in the chess match. Sanada, on the other hand, swung by pure feel. What would that approach do against this pitcher?
I wanted a first run soon. Or I could just go get one myself.
Crack!
"Huh?"
Sanada swung at the first pitch. The contact sounded dull and heavy.
"…"
He was already flying toward first. An inside pitch, mishit — but the pure strength of it carried the ball over the shortstop's head.
Result: first and second, nobody out. The outfield had been playing deep enough that it might have been first and third, but Matsuda wasn't exactly a burner.
Good.
My first at-bat of the Koshien preliminaries, and it came with a chance to put us on the board.
Now batting, pitcher, Hongo.
I stepped into the box slowly. Nothing felt better than a pitcher scoring his own runs.
The problem is…
I'd never faced this guy either — and as a right-handed hitter, I'd never been particularly strong against lefties to begin with.
"Hongo!"
"Send it!"
Cheers rose from the bench. I only cared about the chess match with the pitcher.
Probably away.
He was a lefty who liked to work the outer half against right-handers. That said, the velocity wasn't soft — he could still jam you inside on a whim.
I'd take a look first.
Whap!
The first pitch missed the zone.
"Strike!"
"…"
I flinched. That had clearly been off the plate — but arguing with the umpire never helped anyone.
Then the next one. He stole my timing clean.
Whap!
"Strike!"
"Haa."
An inside curve. He'd looked confident enough in the fastball that I thought he might show it once — wrong.
I'd lost this at-bat so far. Fair enough. 0–2. Bad count, but a half-hearted swing was the last thing I could afford. A ground ball here could turn into something ugly.
In that case…
Even if I went down swinging, I was taking my cut. If he dropped a real changeup on me, so be it. Hitting was the harder side of the sport. Letting my temper run the box never ended well.
That same ugly, deceptive delivery again.
Huh?
I swung on pure instinct. What the hell was this pitch?
Crack!
"…"
I grinned only after the bat came through. Away, but it never dropped — a flat, lifeless changeup. A pure mistake pitch.
The line drive I punched the other way dropped fair down the right-field line.
"Hongo!"
"Go!"
I touched first and kept going for second. Sanada had good wheels.
"…"
I turned for third and dug in.
"Safe!"
"Haa."
A two-RBI triple. I brushed the dirt off after the slide and stood up.
"Ooooh!"
"Yes!"
"Coach Maeda really does have a romantic streak."
"Go, Hongo!"
"Finish it!"
Seeing the same pitcher still coming out of the bullpen, Seisho's fans roared. Top of the seventh — Hoinichi 0, Seisho 9.
Six innings, eleven strikeouts, no runs allowed. Yukihisa was back out to close it.
From the fifth inning on, a ten-run lead triggered the mercy rule; from the seventh, seven runs. If Hoinichi couldn't claw back at least three, the game was over right here.
"What happened?"
"You just got here, senpai?"
"No runs, and it's still Hongo? Must've been a hell of a day."
Plenty of sports reporters were already at the park, and more had come running once their other games finished.
"Top velocity one-fifty-four, and he picked up two hits at the plate. If this ends now, Hongo's triple is the game-winner."
"Well, damn."
Pitching and hitting — a perfect summer debut.
Whap!
"Strike three!"
"Whoa — slider this time."
"…"
One of the reporters nodded to himself.
If this keeps up, next round is Senshisen…
If Seisho advanced, their round-of-sixteen opponent would be Senshisen High. On paper, Seisho was clearly the stronger side.
"From the quarterfinals on, even covering the games gets hard."
"Sorry?"
"Which means I need to get this written up before it's too late. Nothing else today is worth a story."
TV and internet broadcasts, West Tokyo prelim quarterfinals at Meiji Jingu Stadium — the holy ground of Tokyo high school baseball. After that, Hongo Yukihisa's name would spread whether anyone liked it or not. A reporter's job was to put that second-year pitcher on the map a day early.
Crack!
A weak grounder with two outs. Yukihisa fielded it himself and threw to first.
"Out!"
Called game. Final.
Hongo Yukihisa's first Koshien preliminary start: seven innings, thirteen strikeouts, three hits, one walk, zero runs.
"…"
The reporters watching him could only stare as he walked off the mound like it was nothing — after a pitching performance like that, and after driving in the winning run himself.