After being struck out by Lin Guanglai, Mizuhara Gakuto returned to his team's dugout and plopped down on an empty seat.

Quickly, other teammates on the bench flocked towards him, eager to know how he felt during his at-bat.

"Gakuto, how was it, how was it? What does it feel like to face Lin Guanglai in the batter's box?" Tandate Ryoki, sitting next to Mizuhara, asked as he comforted his teammate with a pat.

Mizuhara Gakuto didn't show any sign of disappointment on his face. In fact, he had anticipated that facing Lin Guanglai's pitching as a batter wouldn't be easy—after all, if the "generation's best" pitcher were only that skilled, then the eyes of the media and professionals would be quite off.

As he removed his gear piece by piece, Mizuhara Gakuto recalled his at-bat and shared his thoughts in detail with his teammates:

"Hmm... how should I put it—if Jintaro's pitching is rated 80 in difficulty, then Lin Guanglai's pitching is 120 in difficulty!"

"The ball speed is fast enough, but his control is also precise. From the start, he kept attacking my inside corner—it looked like many pitches were about to hit me, but they ended up just grazing the strike zone into the glove."

"And mainly, his pitches are really heavy and dense! I hit the second pitch squarely, but the ball was so heavy I couldn't fully power it, and it just fouled out."

"Overall, I feel like I need at least one more at-bat to get used to the intensity of his pitches—it seems our pre-game pitching machine strategy didn't help at all..."

The pitching strategy Mizuhara referred to was an additional part of their training after Osaka Tsubaki confirmed a friendly match with Waseda Jitsugyo.

In Japan, there's a relatively simple and direct set of rules for gauging pitcher ability:

For traditional pitchers, to be a team's ace in a regular school, they need to throw over 130 km/h;

Those who can reach over 140 km/h speed in their three high school years are often starters for Koshien-level school teams;

And those who break 150 km/h in their high school years are dubbed as "genius pitchers" or even "monsters."

In reality, baseball isn't like a game where continual practice leads to continual speed increases. Many other factors affect how much a pitcher's speed can increase:

Would focusing too much on speed lead to injury? Can you maintain control with sufficient speed? In a game, with unexpected situations, can you keep the speed stable... these are all concerns high school pitchers must consider.

For 90% of high school pitchers, the 140-150 km/h range may be their talent ceiling, and it's hard to break through with just effort—though future advances in body and sports science might allow for further breakthroughs, but that would be beyond their high school careers.

Currently, in Japan, for instance in the Koshien tournament, only 16 pitchers have thrown over 150 km/h since speed records started—the most recent being Lin Guanglai from this year's Senbatsu High School Baseball Tournament.

Listening to his friend's words, Tandate Ryoki sitting next to Mizuhara Gakuto chuckled teasingly, saying:

"Gakuto, if that's the case, we might as well just concede haha—with them being so strong, how can we win?"

Mizuhara Gakuto gave him a sidelong glance and said, "It's not to that extent, Lin Guanglai, no matter how strong, is still human—with our Tsubaki lineup, his strength only delays when we concede runs."

"What if we can't hold them off?" Someone cluelessly asked this question in the crowd, and Osaka Tsubaki's team immediately responded with boos.

"No way! Jintaro, aside from control, is just better than Lin Guanglai—don't forget, he's our 'Nansoku's Darvish'!!!"

After the top half of the inning ended, the teams switched roles, and it was Osaka Tsubaki's turn to defend.

Fujinami Jintaro stood on the mound, eyes slightly open, clearly replaying the last half-inning's game: As the team's ace, he was batting ninth and had the best seat to watch Lin Guanglai's pitching.

Fujinami Jintaro had to admit, Lin Guanglai was indeed strong, possibly even stronger than he currently was—but that didn't mean he would concede; instead, a powerful opponent like this ignited his strong competitive spirit.

Nodding towards Kawabata Akane squatting behind home plate, Fujinami Jintaro began his pitch.

With his hands lifted high above his head, and then gently brought down to his chest, he lifted his front leg and gently stepped forward, taking a big stride toward home plate, fully extending his body forward.

For this pitch, Fujinami Jintaro didn't even use his full strength; to ensure control, he had to sacrifice some speed advantage.

As his teammates mentioned, Fujinami's excellent static talent allowed him to comfortably pitch over 150 km/h fireballs, but, at the same time, his control left much to be desired.

It's fine against left-handed batters, but when facing right-handers on the same side, his rough control often leads to hit batsmen, allowing the opposing team free bases.

This is why high school baseball is relatively pure; in professional games, repeated hit batsmen incidents would likely lead to benches-emptying incidents.

But this pitch had high quality—the baseball, flicked by Fujinami Jintaro's arm, shot quickly towards Shigetsugu Shinjiro to the outer-middle area of the strike zone.

With strong spin on the ball, its entry into the strike zone was at an ambiguous spot, making it difficult for the batter, Shigetsugu Shinjiro, to decide in that moment.

The outer pitch was indeed tempting, and driven by the urge to get on base as the lead-off batter, Shigetsugu Shinjiro couldn't resist and swung at the incoming ball.

The result was, of course, that he missed.

The second pitch was identical in form; however, this time, Fujinami Jintaro chose to fully extend his arm.

Perhaps stimulated by Lin Guanglai's three consecutive strikeouts, Fujinami Jintaro's control on this pitch was impressive, the baseball violently attacking the low outer corner of the strike zone.

"Bam." Shigetsugu Shinjiro barely had time to react, as the baseball had been thrown by Fujinami Jintaro just a second before, and now it was already in the catcher's mitt of Kawabata Akane.

When the stadium's speed gun showed the ball's speed, the local crowd surrounding the stadium instantly erupted into loud cheers—

151 km/h.

For the spectators living nearby, watching Osaka Tsubaki's players was like watching their own children—seeing their proud young ace throw beyond 150 km/h fireballs made them feel a strong sense of local pride.

"Look at our 'Nansoku's Darvish'! I don't think Jintaro is much worse than Lin Guanglai across the field!"

"This summer, it has to belong to us, Tsubaki!!!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.