Bottom of the eighth inning.
Zhang Han had been struck out.
Narumiya Mei's changeup, the same one that had dealt with Yuuki earlier, had now taken down Zhang Han too. The two batters considered the spiritual pillars of Seido High School Baseball Team had fallen to the same pitch, one after the other.
The more the Seido fans had hoped, the harder the fall.
It's over. It's completely over.
Not just the fans. Zhang Han, walking back from the plate, felt it more acutely than anyone. The game was already in the bottom of the eighth. The chances to counterattack were running out. Every out from here was a matter of life and death for Seido. With him gone, the probability of scoring in this inning had dropped sharply.
But that wasn't even the most important part. An out meant the lineup couldn't continue sequentially. In practical terms, this was almost certainly Zhang Han's last time at the plate. Aside from pitching defense, the only thing left he could contribute was hope.
He had let down the director, the coaches, his teammates, and everyone who had supported him. Zhang Han, with his deep sense of responsibility, felt hollow. Sick with it.
He walked back toward the dugout, head down.
The game wasn't over yet, but Zhang Han knew clearly enough. Seido's chances of turning this around were almost gone.
He passed Yuuki, who was heading up to bat.
"Don't you have anything to say to me?"
"I ..."
Zhang Han looked at his captain's resolute face and opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
He couldn't find the words.
Narumiya Mei's pitching was too fast. A batter couldn't wait for the ball to fully enter the hitting zone before swinging. They had to judge the timing in advance and commit early. Once committed, if they had guessed wrong on the changeup, the result was predictable.
The changeup itself wasn't frightening. Narumiya Mei's changeup was.
Backed by a powerful fastball, the occasional changeup was almost impossible to anticipate. If he could deploy it flexibly and at will, his pitching would become unsolvable.
How was Zhang Han supposed to tell Yuuki any of that? To walk his captain through a detailed account of how formidable their opponent was?
He couldn't bring himself to say it.
Yuuki looked at him with complete sincerity.
"You performed very well. Your pitching, I mean. We won't let it go to waste. The game won't end like this."
From the sixth inning onwards, Zhang Han had not given up a single run. His performance had amazed everyone watching, including his own teammates. That Zhang Han could reach that level had genuinely surprised them. Seido had not collapsed. They were playing well against Inashiro, competing in a way that felt real. Zhang Han deserved the most credit for that.
The second-year seniors hadn't said it aloud, but they all recognized it. Now that Zhang Han was in difficulty, it was their turn to step up.
"Fourth batter, first base, Yuuki Tetsuya!"
Seido's captain stepped into the batter's box.
He had been struck out in the previous inning. Now he set himself with total focus.
There was only one chance.
Narumiya Mei's pitching was too fast to wait on. Once he combined his fastball and changeup freely, Seido could only get hits through luck. Luck was not something Miyuki was willing to rely on. So they had to gamble: changeup or no changeup.
Before Yuuki headed up, Coach Kataoka had given him one instruction: swing at the first pitch.
"The probability of the first pitch being a changeup is the lowest."
A batter might take the first pitch to observe it. If they spotted a changeup early, they might swing directly at it. No one could realistically wait for Narumiya Mei's fastball to fully enter the zone before swinging. But hitting his changeup was something Seido's batters could manage, if they saw it coming.
Coach Kataoka had seen that clearly.
Seido's players had been agonizing over the changeup. Its unpredictability made them feel trapped. But from Inashiro's side, the same constraint applied. The changeup couldn't simply be thrown whenever Narumiya Mei felt like it.
As the saying goes, one who often walks by the river cannot avoid getting wet. What if a batter waited on the ball and had the reaction speed to handle it? A changeup seen through was essentially a free hit.
To use it, Narumiya Mei needed at least eighty percent certainty that the batter would swing. Otherwise, it simply wasn't a viable option.
The reason he hadn't thrown it freely all game wasn't mercy. It was a constraint built into the pitch itself.
Here it comes.
As Coach Kataoka had expected, Narumiya Mei's first pitch was a fastball.
Yuuki read it cleanly and swung.
"Ping!"
The moment the ball made contact, time seemed to stop. Only the white ball kept moving. Shirakawa, one of the most precise defenders on the field, watched it land beside him. He had time to turn his head, nothing more. His body couldn't get there.
The ball landed, bounced away, and was finally tracked down by an Inashiro outfielder.
"Safe!"
Yuuki Tetsuya had reached first base.
The entire field went quiet.
No one had expected this after Zhang Han's strikeout.
And it didn't stop there.
The fifth batter, Isashiki Jun, swung at a ball outside the zone and hit it cleanly behind first base. The Inashiro players were stunned. Narumiya Mei looked almost helpless. He had read Isashiki Jun's aggressive mindset and deliberately thrown a bad pitch to bait him into swinging. And Isashiki Jun had swung at it, and hit it.
Narumiya Mei had baited him into making contact.
Seido immediately took advantage. Yuuki, already moving, advanced from first to second and then to third. Isashiki Jun went past first and on to second.
Inashiro's outfielder threw back to second base, not with much hope but worth trying. If the tag worked, it worked.
It didn't.
Yuuki, having just reached third, got the signal from the third base coach and broke immediately for home. By the time Inashiro's players reacted, he had already scored.
"Safe!"
Zhang Han leapt to his feet in the dugout.
No one was more reliable than his seniors.
They had somehow clawed a run back, and in doing so had moved the lineup up two spots.
Maybe there was still hope after all.
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