Top of the seventh inning. Inashiro Industrial High School Baseball Team at bat.
The first to step into the batter's box was the second-year third baseman, Yoshizawa Hideaki. He was burly and incredibly strong. If his bat connected with the ball, even just a slight graze, there was a good chance he would send it flying.
That could be said of nearly every hitter on Inashiro Industrial's lineup, Shirakawa aside. Even Carlos, Narumiya Mei, and Hirai, none of them particularly large, had extraordinary hitting power.
Facing a team like this, Zhang Han felt the weight of it. He was even quietly grateful that Coach Kataoka hadn't put him on the mound from the start. His stamina would have given out long ago. He might not have had anything left for hitting or running the bases.
Low and inside. Fastball.
Miyuki gave the signal.
Every hitter had a zone they excelled at and a zone they struggled with. Even Yuuki Tetsuya, said to have no weaknesses, had varying success rates across different parts of the strike zone. The burly Yoshizawa had more trouble with low pitches.
Starting the at-bat with the opponent's weakest zone made sense. If it worked, they could take control early. If something went wrong, there was still room to adjust.
Zhang Han nodded. He trusted Miyuki's read, pulled his arm back, and threw.
"Whoosh!"
The white ball whistled through the air, reaching the batter in an instant.
Yoshizawa, known for his aggressive swings, did not swing. He watched the baseball fly past.
"Thwack!"
"Strike!"
The pitch had hit the low zone cleanly.
Today, Zhang Han had the occasional errant pitch, but most of them were reliable. Not precise down to the millimeter, but the deviation rarely exceeded four or five centimeters. For a pitcher with only two months of left-handed practice, that was remarkable.
With that kind of control, going up against Inashiro's hitters, they weren't necessarily at a disadvantage.
Second pitch, low zone again.
"Thwack!"
"Strike!"
Yoshizawa was prepared this time, but he still didn't swing.
Miyuki read it immediately. The opponent had figured out that Zhang Han's control wasn't fully stable, so they were being selective. Before two strikes, they would not swing unless the pitch was easy to handle.
Fine. Then they would try something else.
Zhang Han saw Miyuki's signal and paused for a brief moment, then gave a slight nod. With two strikes in their favor, there was room to play a trick or two.
The white ball came in.
This pitch was clearly half a beat slower than the previous two.
A changeup?
Yoshizawa thought so. And if it was just a changeup, he wouldn't hold back. A changeup that was spotted lost all its value; once seen, a batter could wait for the ball to arrive and swing at it like an ordinary pitch with no speed behind it.
Calculating the timing, Yoshizawa swung decisively.
His bat missed. The ball dropped sharply just before home plate and bounced off the ground.
Swung and missed.
The force of his own swing spun Yoshizawa more than halfway around before he caught himself. The ball skipped up and Miyuki caught it cleanly, then reached out and tagged Yoshizawa.
"Out!"
Miyuki and Zhang Han had worked together perfectly to record the first out.
Loud cheers erupted from Seido's dugout. The pressure Narumiya Mei had built up in the previous half-inning lifted noticeably.
It took the fans in the stands a moment to work out what had just happened. The commentator, equally puzzled, turned to Fujita beside him.
"Was that a changeup?"
Fujita shook his head, smiling.
"It wasn't a changeup. Zhang Han was aiming directly at home plate on that pitch. He released the ball earlier than usual, partway through his arm swing."
Because of the early release and the reduced force behind it, the pitch had looked like a fastball but behaved differently. Similar height coming in, but it ran out of momentum and hit the ground early.
Yoshizawa, walking back after the strikeout, was furious.
This first-year battery from Seido was treating him like an idiot. It was simply too much.
The strategy Zhang Han and Miyuki had used wasn't clever, if he was being honest. They had simply read Yoshizawa's mindset after getting two strikes on him and lured him into swinging at a bad pitch. The trick was crude.
The key had been the execution, especially Zhang Han's. That fresh-faced look was deceptive; his acting was on the level of a seasoned veteran. He had sold the pitch as a genuine fastball attempt before quietly pulling the rug out.
If Yoshizawa had seen it coming, he would never have fallen for something so basic. It had no real technical content at all.
That was exactly what made it so humiliating.
Now everyone in the stands, and every one of those irritating voices in the dugout, would have even more to say. They had always joked that he was all muscle and no brain. This wasn't going to help.
Yoshizawa returned to the dugout with his head down. He crossed paths with Harada on the way in, and his eyes slid away.
But there were things that needed to be said.
"Watch out for those two. They have too many tricks and they won't come at you straight."
"What about that rising pitch?"
What Harada wanted to know about most was the pitch that had struck out Shirakawa. If Zhang Han had also developed a fastball with a rising effect similar to Narumiya Mei's, they would have to work much harder at the plate going forward.
"Probably a coincidence. His speed is fast, but the power behind it is nowhere near Narumiya's. You don't need to wait for the perfect pitch. If you get a chance, just swing."
It was fair advice, and accurate. If Miyuki and Zhang Han knew Inashiro was thinking along those lines, it might have worried them considerably. That approach would at least double their problems.
But coming from someone who had just been fooled by a trick pitch, the advice landed with less than half the weight it deserved. Harada couldn't bring himself to take it at face value.
He would have to see Zhang Han's pitching for himself. There was no other way to know.
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