Chapter 331: Yokohama's Crisis
"This inning is the key." Seeing Seidou's players take the field on defense, Mine Fujio spoke from the sidelines.
"Huh?" Oowada Akiko didn't quite understand. The game had clearly been drifting into a stalemate—so why did he say this inning?
"Although it looks like both sides are locked in a scoreless deadlock, the nature of that stalemate is different. One side can't score because they have no hits at all; the other hasn't allowed runs because of solid defense. And in the bottom of the fifth, Seidou will start from the leadoff hitter. In reality, Yokohama has never been able to deal with the Sendo–Yuuki combination. If they can't find a way to score off Sawamura this inning—or fail to suppress this turn of the lineup on defense afterward—then this game is probably already over."
"I see."
...
"Top of the fifth! Yokohama's turn at bat—Fifth hitter! Third baseman, Zemunura!"
"Pitch carefully, Sawamura," Miyuki said—he understood how important this inning was.
He wanted to protect the score and carry the advantage into Seidou's bottom-half offense.
Sawamura continued his deep breathing.
"My condition today definitely isn't bad. Am I just a bit too excited? Anyway, just throw it to that mitt."
"Pff!"
"First pitch! Be careful!"
"Whoosh!"
"Ball!"
"Ugh!" Sawamura took the call hard.
"Idiot—too careful," Miyuki cursed inwardly.
But he could only keep giving signs. An unstable first-year pitcher wasn't exactly new.
"Whoosh!"
"Ping!"
"Onii-san!"
"Plop!"
"Ah!" Seeing the ball drop, Sawamura took another hit mentally.
To be precise, the ball landed right in no-man's land—between Onii-san, Sendo, and Isashiki.
"Too high!" Miyuki gestured, signaling the pitch was too high.
Sawamura's ball was easy to drive once it hit a metal bat—there was nothing to be done about that.
"The ball drops between the second baseman, center fielder, and right fielder! Yokohama's first hit of the game!"
"Yo!!!" Yokohama's bench erupted in celebration.
Miyuki didn't even consider calling time. This wouldn't shake Sawamura.
Unlike Furuya, Sawamura was the type who let batters hit—runners were bound to reach. As long as he stuck to his pitching, it was fine.
That was why, in the previous timeline, before the Hakuryuu game, Sawamura had remained largely unnoticed nationwide.
"Sixth hitter! Left fielder, Komura!"
"Let him hit it, Sawamura-chan!"
"Take them one by one!"
At the same time, Miyuki unhesitatingly set his mitt on the inside corner.
"Heh! That's pretty aggressive—after just getting hit," Sawamura thought as he delivered.
"Whoosh!"
"Strike!"
"See? You can throw it," Miyuki thought lightly.
For the next sign, he again set up inside.
"Whoosh!"
"Another inside pitch!"
"Ping!"
"Damn! Cutter!"
This time Onii-san fielded it with his left glove and fired immediately.
"Yahaha!" Kuramochi leapt as he received the throw at second.
"Out!"
"Double play!!"
"Alright! Alright, alright, alright!" Sawamura celebrated wildly on the mound.
That was Sawamura's pitching—thrilling. Just moments ago it was no outs, runner on first; two pitches later, two outs, bases empty.
No more surprises this inning. One pitch later, Sawamura got the third out.
Three up, three down.
In the bottom of the fifth, as Ino found his rhythm, Kuramochi again failed to reach base, and even Onii-san only managed to extend the at-bat a little.
Two outs.
"Third hitter! Right fielder, Isashiki!"
"My turn, damn it!" Jun snarled as he stepped in, looking ready to punch someone.
The umpire flinched—he knew Jun looked fierce, but until now he'd always been polite. This expression was genuinely intimidating.
"Please take care of me."
"Phew." Seeing Isashiki instantly revert to his usual politeness upon reaching the plate, the umpire relaxed instinctively.
What happened after—Isashiki baring his teeth at Ino—was none of the umpire's business.
"Come on, bastard! Come on!"
Ino ignored Isashiki's ferocious glare and glanced at the on-deck circle—clearly, he didn't want to face the cleanup hitter and the batter after him here.
"Bastard!" Isashiki was furious at the sight.
"Come at me full force!"
"Yeah… I know," Isashiki muttered to himself as Ino lifted his leg.
"Whoosh!"
"Ball!"
"I'm not some genius hitter—"
"Ping!"
"Foul!"
"But still—" He paused.
"Don't underestimate me… bastard!" Isashiki roared.
"Ping!"
The pitch came right as he shouted bastard, and he squared it up.
"He got it! …Base hit to center field! The runner reaches second!"
"Alright!!!"
"That's great!" The female managers hugged each other.
"Oh!!! Demon-face senpai!"
"We're not a team with just those two guys, damn it!" Isashiki yelled at Ino from second base.
"I've done what I can. The stage is set—bring me home, Sendo! Tetsu!" he thought, looking toward the on-deck circle and at Tetsu stepping out of the dugout.
Only in his inner thoughts—or in rare moments—did Isashiki reveal his gentle side.
"Heh." As if he'd heard Isashiki's thoughts, Sendo chuckled lightly and stood up.
"Cleanup hitter! Center fielder, Sendo!"
That announcement, paired with Sendo rising, felt like a hammer blow to Ino's chest.
In his eyes, something terrifying seemed to loom behind Sendo and Tetsu—almost like a monstrous aura.
Ino tilted his head back toward the blazing sun and slowly took deep breaths.
Two outs, runner on second—Sendo's third at-bat.
"Yokohama faces a massive crisis! At the plate stands the cleanup hitter, Sendo, who turned a pitch clearly outside the strike zone into an extra-base hit in his first at-bat! Up next is Seidou's lineup with Yuuki, who barely managed an out last time!"
"Alright!!!"
"We've got this!" a few bench players shouted excitedly.
"Calm down," Onii-san said with a smile.
"I'm counting on you, Sendo! Hit it like the shaggy dog senpai!" Sawamura hopped around even harder.
"Who's a shaggy dog?!" Jun snarled from second.
"Idiot. He's a really good pitcher. And he won't throw me anything good anyway. I'll just have to go after a relatively hittable ball," Sendo countered in his mind.
As Sendo stepped in, all three outfielders retreated far back—this was the kind of slugger who could go yard at any moment.
"Now is the time to decide," Yokohama Coach thought.
Then—
"Sorry! Time out!" The bench called for time—a defensive time-out.
But instead of sending a runner, the coach himself walked onto the field.
All six infielders gathered at the mound, waiting as the coach approached slowly.
"Coach!" ×n
"Ino!"
"…Yes!" Ino responded after a brief pause.
"Do you want to settle this by facing him head-on?"
"Huh?" Ino wasn't like Seidou's two dumb twin aces who could immediately understand what the coach meant—this was a question about his resolve. He was a pitcher with self-awareness.
"At a moment like this, what kind of method will they use to deal with Sendo?" Even though the opposing coach had personally come out, Ota still spoke with a relaxed tone.
After the summer qualifiers, Ota had developed a kind of blind faith in Sendo. It wasn't that Sendo could never be shut down by a pitcher, but the more critical the moment, the more reliable he became—that was the Sendo in Ota's eyes.
After witnessing Seidou's four–five cleanup combination, even with two outs already recorded, no one felt the situation favored Yokohama.
"They still have two bases open," Chris suddenly said, his expression serious as he thought of a highly likely possibility.
With the head coach coming out personally in a situation like this, there had to be something he needed to persuade his players to accept.
Chris believed this was the most likely scenario.
"Huh?!!" Since he had never encountered this before, Ota didn't understand at first—but a second later, he did, and chose to remain silent.
The dugout, which had been lively just moments ago, instantly quieted down. Masuko tightened his grip on the bat.
If that was the case, then it meant settling things head-on—how could there be no pressure?
On the other side—
"I want to win this game!!! I want to maximize our chances of winning," Ino answered firmly, glancing at the three pitchers warming up in Seidou's bullpen.
He knew he couldn't allow the score to expand easily.
If he chose to settle it head-on, the risk was too great. Sendo's out in the previous inning was luck, and it had taken enormous effort just to strike out Tetsu—there was no guarantee it could happen again.
To reduce the risk, he chose to comply.
"I understand. We'll settle it with the sixth batter. Although he hit a breaking ball earlier, you can't say he's overcome his weakness against breaking pitches. Compared to the two power hitters whose weaknesses we can't find, the risk of facing him is the lowest. The bases-loaded strategy can easily produce an out, but it can also lead to a big inning if things go wrong—so we must be cautious."
Yokohama Coach laid out the strategy the players already understood.
"Yes!!"
"Shiraha! Be bold with the pitch calling! That sixth batter is under pressure too—he won't want to waste such a golden chance!"
"Yes!!"
Everyone knew they absolutely couldn't let them swing freely.
Sendo and Tetsu were the kind of hitters who could change the entire flow of the game with a single swing, igniting the batters behind them and sending the lineup into a frenzy. In most cases, a big offensive explosion started with a soul-shaking hit like that.
As he walked off the mound, Yokohama Coach felt a sense of helplessness. Seidou's lineup was just too unfair.
A lineup that forced the opponent to intentionally walk two batters in a row—and the rest were still mostly strong hitters—was simply miserable to deal with.
"Damn it!" Ino lowered his head and vented his frustration.
His teammates patted him on the shoulder in turn to console him, then returned to their defensive positions.
Neither the players nor the spectators inside or outside the stadium sensed anything unusual. Even Sendo hadn't expected Yokohama to make such a decisive call—issuing two intentional walks in a row.
But just as the coach from Sensen had once said, choosing to settle things with a batter you can reliably handle was a common baseball tactic, and the bases-loaded strategy itself was nothing rare.
At the very least, consecutive intentional walks as part of a bases-loaded strategy were more acceptable to spectators than mindless free passes.
Even when power hitters were walked, fans might grumble or boo, but not everyone would.
"Time-out is over, play resumes! The catcher isn't crouching—intentional walk! …The catcher still isn't crouching—bases-loaded strategy! Yokohama chooses the bases-loaded strategy! Now it's two outs, bases loaded!" Even the announcer was surprised by Yokohama's decisiveness.
"Sixth batter! Third baseman, Masuko!"
"Huff!" Masuko took a deep breath, sweat forming lightly on his face.
"Huff! Alright—let's do this!" Ino muttered to himself on the mound, pumping himself up.
He knew this wasn't an easy batter either—it was just that the four–five combo was simply too overwhelming.
Seeing Ino ready, Shiraha gave the first sign.
"Huff!" Ino saw the sign and took another deep breath.
"So the coach told you to be bold with the pitch calling—and you really went bold, huh? Alright, let's do it," Ino thought as he straightened his posture.
"Masuko-san…" Sendo murmured with some concern.
Even though Sendo was on second base and Masuko knew that Sendo could use baserunning as a signal, with Sendo caught in the middle now, using a steal as a signal would be far too obvious and useless. Masuko had to handle this on his own.
"Pff!"
"Whoosh!"
"Ugga!"
"Pop!"
"Strike!"
"What a daring pitch selection! The first pitch is a slider—the very pitch Masuko hit in his previous at-bat!!! The batter completely mistimes it and swings through! Where will the second pitch go?"
"Pff!"
"Whoosh!"
"Pop!"
"Strike! Two!!!"
"Masuko-senpai's swinging too hard," Miyuki thought as he watched.
"Inside fastball! The trajectory before breaking is exactly the same as the slider!
That makes it two strikes!"
"Alright!!! He's cornered!"
"Finish him in one go!"
"Masuko-senpai!"
"Hit it! Ura!" Sachiko, one of the second-year managers, revealed her true nature again.
"Ugga! Ugga!" Masuko was even making "ugga" sounds just breathing now…
And the sweat on his face kept increasing.
"Third pitch!"
"Whoosh!"
"U… ugga!"
"Pop!"
"Strike!"
"Batter out! Side retired!"
"The final pitch is the same pattern! Inside forkball! At the very end, Yokohama's ace still chose to settle it with his finishing pitch! And all three pitches were the exact same pattern! A true ace's pitching performance!"
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