CHAPTER 364: CHAPTER 15: PROFESSION STRENGTH, PART 2

Worried that Lin Guanglai’s mentality might be affected, SoftBank’s catcher called for a temporary pause before facing Seibu’s foreign hitter in the fourth and fifth positions, and then walked straight up to the pitcher’s mound.

The catcher partnering with Lin Guanglai today is not Yamashita Fumizuki from the second team, but the current starting catcher of the SoftBank First Team, the well-known veteran Hosokawa Kei—he previously played for the Seibu Lions and was Seibu’s legendary catcher Ito Kei’s handpicked successor. Throughout his career, he caught for many famous pitchers, including Matsuzaka Daisuke, Yu Darvish, Maeda Kenta, and Kikuchi Yuusei, until he was replaced by the younger Ginjiro Tanaka due to age, and transferred to SoftBank in 2010.

With over ten years of experience as a first-team catcher and having partnered with many renowned pitchers, Hosokawa Kei is very adept at assessing a pitcher’s state and guiding them to make the best pitches according to the situation.

As soon as he arrived on the pitcher’s mound, seeing Lin Guanglai slightly dazed, Hosokawa Kei thought he was overwhelmed by the opponent’s aggressive offensive surge in his first starting appearance—as a high school genius player, facing such a jarring gap when entering professional baseball is common, and Hosokawa Kei had seen it many times over the years.

Walking to Lin Guanglai’s side, Hosokawa Kei patted his young peer on the back and quickly took all the responsibility on himself:

"Guanglai, you pitched well this inning—the two full bases were my fault as the catcher in guiding you."

"Regarding your ability, after all these days of training, we old guys couldn’t be any clearer. Next, we will face two foreign hitters, and if you don’t like the calls I give you, just shake your head and refuse—just boldly and readily throw the pitch you want, and I’ll take full responsibility for the rest!"

"Don’t be nervous; don’t feel inferior because your opponents are foreign hitters. Actually, we..."

"Thank you for your concern, Senior Hosokawa." Somewhat unusually, Lin Guanglai interrupted before Hosokawa Kei could finish his words, "But I really don’t have any problem."

After thanking Hosokawa Kei for his goodwill, Lin Guanglai confidently promised, "Don’t worry, Senpai, I would never feel that I’m naturally inferior to foreign hitters—to say something you might laugh at, even if I were to face Mike Trout from the Angels and Miguel Cabrera from the Tigers next, I am absolutely confident about striking them out."

The two people Lin Guanglai mentioned included the MLB’s Rookie of the Year last season, an unparalleled genius who hit 30 home runs in his first full season, and the star player of the Detroit Tigers, the 18th "Triple Crown" winner in Major League history in 45 years, an all-encompassing hitter without weaknesses.

If at first Hosokawa Kei doubted whether this junior was just being stubborn and not admitting it; when Lin Guanglai said, "Even if Trout and Cabrera came together, I have confidence in striking them out," Hosokawa Kei realized that this junior is not some fragile artificial genius brought up in a cozy environment; he is an eagle destined to soar through the skies from birth!

On the way back to the catcher’s position behind home plate, Hosokawa Kei glanced lightly at Seibu’s fourth batter, who stood absentmindedly by the batter’s box, shaking his head unintentionally—he had a premonition, if that American had any disregard, Lin Guanglai would make him realize true prowess.

Seibu’s fourth hitter, Ryan Spilborghs, registered as "Spily", is the foreign player Seibu’s scout recruited from the United States this year—he was a seventh-round pick in the 2002 MLB draft and played for the Colorado Rockies for seven years; at his peak, Spily was a main player who maintained a .300 batting average in the majors, hitting 11 home runs in a single season.

Even though Spily was demoted by a Major League team in 2012 due to age, the camel that dies from hunger is still bigger than a horse, and this level of player has considerable deterrence in the Nippon Professional Baseball. Lin Guanglai, facing him for the first time, would not dare to be careless.

Wearing Seibu’s white home jersey, Spily strutted to the plate, stretching his body in front of Lin Guanglai, then took a big step forward into the left batter’s box.

Frankly, although his new Japanese teammates had warned him before the match, saying the young-looking pitcher over there was a once-in-a-century super genius acknowledged across Japan, Spily himself did not take it seriously: jokingly, as someone who served as a main player in the Majors for 7 years, he’d seen all kinds of genius pitchers, so how could he fear a player who just graduated from high school.

In Spily’s view, maybe the young man on the pitcher’s mound was indeed a genius, but at least for now, he would give him a lesson and show him what a truly quasi-MLB level hitter was like.

On the pitcher’s mound, Lin Guanglai, after exchanging ideas with Hosokawa Kei, took a deep breath and quickly threw the ball.

As usual, with a series of fluid pitching motions, he transferred all his strength into the baseball in his right hand, propelling the small white ball to sprint towards home plate at high speed.

How fast was this pitch? Fast enough that even a quasi-MLB hitter like Spily couldn’t clearly see the baseball itself—in the batter’s view, the ball shot out from Lin Guanglai’s hand like a supercar accelerating, dashing towards the strike zone at a speed normal people can’t react to; because of the exceptional speed, the path of the baseball appeared to rise slightly in the batter’s view, further increasing the difficulty of hitting.

Ordinarily, a batter might instinctively choose to dodge; however, being a former Major League player, Spily, to maintain his dignity as a hitter, forced himself to focus on the incoming ball, gritting his teeth as he swung the bat hard.

"Crack—" With the sound of something breaking, the baseball was hit by Spily’s swung bat and landed a little in front of home plate.

With keen experience, Hosokawa Kei was the first to react, quickly getting up, picking up the ball, and with a swing of the arm sending it towards second base.

As per the rules, with runners on first and third base, when Spily hit the ball into play, Kuriyama Takashi, originally on first base, automatically entered a forced advance status, having to move towards the second base bag—however, clearly, Seibu’s base runners hadn’t reacted at all:

From Lin Guanglai’s pitch to Spily’s swing, the whole sequence happened so swiftly that the time for the runners to react was nearly zero—by the time Kuriyama Takashi and Akiyama Shingo realized they needed to advance, SoftBank had almost completed the double play.

Three outs, sides change.

Amidst thunderous cheers from the crowd, Lin Guanglai clenched his right fist and waved it in celebration, then jogged back to his team’s dugout, receiving pats on the head from his teammates, celebrating this close-call defensive effort.

The players from Seibu were quite frustrated for missing such a scoring opportunity—especially Spily himself, who directly caused the last double play. Looking at the wooden bat that had just been cleared by the umpire, now broken into two pieces, he genuinely wanted to ask:

"No, is this kid really a high schooler?"