"Foul ball."
Zhang Han fouled off the first pitch.
The onlookers were genuinely surprised. In their minds, even if Zhang Han didn't hit a home run on the first swing, he should at least have driven the ball into play. Instead, he had barely managed to foul it off.
In the first string section, someone muttered, "Han-san wouldn't be doing it on purpose, would he? Fouling it off to get a look at a few more pitches."
Zhang Han was capable of exactly that.
"No. Coach is right behind him. However much Zhang Han wants to study the pitch, he wouldn't ignore that. If he has a chance to hit it out, he will."
Miyuki shook his head.
The ball hadn't been hit out, which meant Zhang Han had genuinely been suppressed.
No wonder. This was his first time seeing a pitch like this, approaching 150 kilometers per hour with that much upward movement. Anyone would be unsettled.
When a ball rises sharply at high speed, what the hitter has to make contact with is no longer a straight line but an ascending curve. There are only two ways to handle that. One is to wait until the pitcher tires and his pitches stop floating as high.
The other is to find the intersection point where the ball's upward movement and the bat's path cross, then match the bat speed to it. If the swing is even slightly slow, the ball will already be through by the time the bat arrives.
There was a third method, but Miyuki didn't even dare hope for it. That was to read the pattern of the upward movement, judge the extent of the float in advance, and aim for where the ball would be. But that required far more information than two pitches could provide.
In the batter's box, Zhang Han had already reached the same conclusion.
Miyuki was right. To make solid contact with Furuya Satoru's pitch without sufficient information, an ordinary hitter would have to use one of those two methods.
Coincidentally, Zhang Han was not an ordinary hitter. He could judge a baseball's landing point in advance. The only thing making this difficult was the upward movement. How well he could account for a rising ball would come down to what he had learned in practice.
Zhang Han lowered his center of gravity, choked up on the bat, and settled into his stance, watching Furuya Satoru wind up for the second pitch.
"Boom!"
Furuya Satoru's delivery was impossible to look away from. As the ball traveled, the hitter could actually hear it cutting through the air. Layer by layer, the air gave way, and in an instant the ball was on top of him.
High and middle. If nothing changed, there was an 80% chance this ball would fly right over the top of the strike zone.
Zhang Han was not going to let it through to Kataoka's face.
The teammates watching didn't know that yet. When they saw the ball suddenly rise after dropping for a moment, their hearts nearly stopped.
"Dangerous!"
"Get out of the way!"
At that height, making contact would be nearly impossible. There was a real chance the ball would go straight through to Kataoka's face.
The words had barely left their mouths when Zhang Han, who had been crouching low, suddenly straightened up. The ball that had been out of reach was now right in his zone.
"Boom!"
Just as the ball arrived, the bat came through in a sharp arc, striking out from directly in front of Kataoka. Kataoka caught the afterimage of the swing.
Then the bat connected solidly with the ball and sent it flying.
"Ping!"
The relief around the field was immediate and visible. Nobody wanted to see a scene like that again, even as spectators.
Before that breath of relief had fully settled, a figure in the freshman team broke back hard.
Sawamura. He was sprinting toward where the ball was heading.
The freshmen, who still held a small hope, figured that since the ball had gone up so high, as long as it didn't reach the netting there was still a chance. Then they saw who was chasing it, and their hearts sank.
This was the same guy who had already made two or three errors before.
Expecting him to catch this was simply asking too much.
Under everyone's eyes, Sawamura ran directly to the spot beneath the ball.
The freshmen stared. Was a miracle actually about to happen?
"Thud!"
Running at full speed, Sawamura went down. He tumbled a considerable distance along the ground.
And the baseball, as if by coincidence, dropped exactly into the path of that tumble and landed in his glove.
Sawamura had never taken his eyes off the ball. When he saw it dropping into his glove, his face showed pure disbelief.
He was frustrated with Furuya Satoru, but they were teammates regardless. His teammate had just pushed himself to the limit, challenging Zhang Han directly. He could not drop this ball now.
He clamped his glove shut.
But the ball didn't stay. The force behind it forced his glove open and rolled free.
The veterans erupted.
"He didn't catch it!"
"Long hit!"
With Sawamura down and the ball loose, and given Zhang Han's speed, reaching third base was no problem at all. This was a triple.
The veterans were ready to celebrate. Then they noticed Zhang Han had not moved from the batter's box. Not a single step.
He stayed there until Sawamura picked up the ball and threw it back in.
"Timeout."
Coach Kataoka called it. He looked at Zhang Han with calm eyes.
He didn't say anything. Zhang Han understood.
"I lost. Sawamura's catch had an element of luck, but if that had been Carlos, he would not have dropped it."
Zhang Han considered himself out.
Kataoka nodded.
"Good. Every player aiming for the first string needs exactly that kind of judgment. Furuya, come to first string practice tomorrow."
After hearing that, the players around them all went quiet for a moment, each working through the same thought.
They seemed to see a very direct route to the first string opening up in front of them.
Want to get promoted?
It wasn't complicated. Just beat Zhang Han.
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