With his fingers lightly making two gestures underneath, Miyuki's glove was placed on the inside corner of the batter.
At this time, it is time to grab the rhythm. You must first get the lead in the number of balls, so that the batter can feel the power of the ball and have to make a choice whether to swing the next bat.
Furuya nodded and took out Anti-Slip Powder from his pocket again, "It's raining heavily."
Just now in Dugout, a group of hot bodies were crowded together. Furuya felt that the lining was a little dry, but now he was wet from head to toe, which made him shiver.
"There will be no Kōshū after today." This is the first time in a long time. Unlike practice matches that have nothing to do with the team's future, Furuya feels the weight of the outcome of the game on his shoulders. This was a completely new experience for him, causing adrenaline to pump freely into his veins.
"Boom——" The power came continuously, and every ball of Furuya was very powerful.
Ochiai Coach, who was not qualified to sit at Dugout, had no way of seeing Kataoka Manager's chuckle, but he could probably guess it.
One day ago, when the coaching staff was discussing Kōshū's injury, Ochiai, as the person who closely guided the rehabilitation training, expressed the hope that the ace would return to the team for training as soon as possible.
"I fully understand Kataoka Manager's love for Kōshū. It is also a very reasonable arrangement to play against Inomi after two weeks of rest. But I think this rehabilitation training is not a punishment. Now Kōshū's recovery is faster than previously thought, and maybe he can be allowed to play early. He himself has the same idea. ACE can boost the team's atmosphere and win more smoothly."
Ochiai believes that his statement is legitimate and well-founded. In high school baseball, the most unreliable people are the immature high school students. It is very important for the players to have strong abilities or people who can guide the team atmosphere. The last one was Yuki, this time it's Kōshū. Miyuki's batting average is now slowly rising, and he is also the stable pole among the Seido team.
Such a claim was rejected by Kataoka Manager.
"No, not being able to play in the first three games is a wake-up call for Kōshū. Ochiai Coach, please take a look at some information."
Ochiai took the tattered document and said, "Six-year plan? Is this written by Kōshū himself?"
After spending about five minutes browsing, Ochiai knew a little more about Kōshū, "Do you want to enter professional baseball at the age of 18 and then pitch until you are tired of it or until you are 40 years old? I didn't expect him to have thought so far."
"So, Kataoka Manager, do you hope that he can understand that if you stick to your original intention, you can't hide your injury?"
"Not only this, I also have two promises on my back. One is made with Kōshū's first coach - Coach Ninomiya. He is the supervisor of Kinoshita Little League Team of West Tokyo and has a lot of exchanges with the United States. He is also the head coach of U15, so he has brought back many concepts that have become popular abroad. He gave me a lot of advice on Kōshū's appearance in the team. My promise with him is not to let Kōshū complete 9 games in big games."
"Oh..." Can the supervision of the Little League team actually affect the high school? Is Kataoka Manager such an easily influenced person? Ochiai doubts this. It is most likely that Coach Ninomiya described it. Regarding the development of professional baseball after Kōshū, it has occupied Kataoka's mind.
"Then the second promise is to the parents of Kōshū. They are not the kind of parents who want to use their gifted children as cash cows. I have had two in-depth conversations with them about 'healthy and ordinary'. What is surprising is that their wishes are very simple, as if they cannot see the future in front of them. All in all, these two promises have shaken me very much recently. If the rigorous training at the immature stage will cause the genius to fall early, and it is not what the people around him expect, then should I, the supervisor of the high school, appropriately put down my current power and pay more attention to the future of the players."
"Oh..." So, the thorough follow-up investment system adopted by Koshien is the product of Kataoka's change of mentality?
"Then, Kataoka Manager, can I understand that you will also adopt the strategy of continuing to pitch in the future. Even if Kōshū has matured, you will not give up on cultivating the remaining pitchers."
"Yes."
Then we almost understand that the three games in which Kōshū was absent were left by Kataoka Manager for the remaining pitchers to grow. Maybe he doesn't know how well the remaining pitchers can perform without their ace.
Ochiai was thinking about Furuya. As for Eijun, he was assigned to the reliever team with Kawakami early in the morning.
'However, compared to trusting Furuya, Kataoka Manager trusts Kōshū a bit blindly. If he misses important games, the growth of ordinary pitchers will slow down. '
"Bump--" A crisp sound made Ochiai almost pull off one of his beards.
After three innings, Furuya himself was the first to break the deadlock. Although he was also fooled by the erratic ball, the pitcher's strong arm allowed him to bring the ball to the ground in front of the outfielder.
"One bat, shortstop, Kuramochi." Now it was Seido's turn to hit the line again.
"Ah ha, look at me hitting it out." That kind of sticky pitch tricked him into releasing the bat on the first pitch of the last inning. This time he must hit it out. There is also this catcher, who looks honest and honest, but Pitching Strategy is always very awkward. Sure enough, catchers are such a group of insidious guys.
But Kuramochi had just taken a stand at Batter's Box, and there was movement from Dugout on the opposite side.
"Tachikawa Private Notification of player change... Pitcher, Nozawa-kun."
Through the increasingly heavy rain, the eyes of Nozawa and Kōshū collided in the air.
'I must force you to play in the next game, little brother. '
'No no no... '
"Tsk", feeling that the pitcher's eyes were always drifting towards Seido Dugout, Kuramochi stood aside and couldn't help but frowned, 'Are you still distracted? That weird tornado posture of yours, watch me hit you first! '
But——
"Bump-", Kuramochi finally had Sacrifice Bunt walk off the bases.
"The ball thrown from that position looks really fast!"
Shirazu nodded, but Seido didn't score in this game. Before the end of the game, Nozawa made a gesture to Seido's Dugout.
"What, that pitcher, is he provoking us?"
"What does that gesture mean, Kōshū." Kōshū, who wanted to hide behind, was caught out and had to deal with everyone who was angry.
At the entrance of Dugout in Tachikawa on the other side, Nozawa said with a relaxed tone, "Kōshū will most likely not play. He doesn't even have a single mercury in him."
It's Friday It's Friday