OK Changeup

The two of them began working on this changeup, which resembled a palm ball, hoping to increase its drop. At present, it could reliably drop by about two balls' worth. Kōshū had also tried the OK Changeup, the Crab Changeup, and the Raised Finger Changeup, but none of them felt as comfortable as this casually thrown pitch.

"I've seen changeups that can also break sideways toward a right-handed batter's inside corner." Before Kōshū had even finished studying vertical drop, he had already set his sights on horizontal movement.

"Hey, hey—watch my glove properly. Don't get greedy."

"Okay—"

As the designated tool, Lang Zhi was spending another day as a giant fan.

"Want to try the OK Changeup again? Didn't you throw it pretty well last time?" After sending Lang Zhi off to the Batting Cage, Kōshū and Miyuki continued their discussion at home plate.

"I know, but it doesn't feel as natural as throwing it this way."

"I'll be blunt. This pitch is around 128, which isn't much slower than your average 134 fastball. It won't fool batters very well, and its velocity is close to your Cutter's. The point of adding a changeup was to create another speed tier besides your existing fastball and breaking ball. Right now, your changeup and Cutter overlap in speed tiers. It's purely a waste."

Kōshū, who had just been about to say more, immediately sobered up. No pitch was thrown just for fun—it had to serve a real purpose in an actual game. "I understand. Then I'll try the OK Changeup next."

"Good. Once your velocity goes up, this pitch might come in handy." Miyuki was starting to genuinely enjoy partnering with Kōshū.

The OK Changeup was thrown by making an OK sign with all five fingers and pinching the ball within it. The overall pitching motion and arm swing at release were exactly the same as a fastball. Because of the added friction at release, the ball's velocity dropped significantly. Its general trajectory involved rapidly losing speed and dropping in front of home plate, and some pitchers could even get sideways movement on it.

As for Kōshū, his OK Changeup could drop directly to around 117, a difference of twenty-one kilometers from his top speed. After a string of fastballs, the batter's body would have grown accustomed to pitches over 135 kilometers per hour. Throwing in a pitch with a completely different rhythm could immediately disrupt the batter's timing.

But there was one problem—

"Hey, hey, you're digging potatoes again! Control it properly!" A bead of cold sweat appeared on Miyuki's forehead. Did this guy have some kind of grudge against changing grips?

"I told you, this feels really awkward to throw. It feels all soft and weak." Naturally, if it felt awkward to throw, he couldn't control it accurately.

The difference between a changeup and a fastball was the deliberate friction used to reduce speed. The feel was therefore very different from a fastball, making it difficult for Kōshū to adapt at first.

Only after throwing more than a dozen pitches did he barely begin to find the feel of throwing a changeup.

"You take way too long to warm up." It had been the same last time. Every time he switched from fastballs to changeups, he had to throw more than a dozen before they started looking decent.

"I got into rhythm faster than last time."

"So you've finally found the limits of your talent, huh?" Miyuki's sharp tongue went unanswered by Kōshū.

In professional baseball, where people made their living from the sport, pitchers from all over gathered there. Calling them the best among geniuses would not have been an exaggeration. Yet every pitcher still had pitches they threw well and pitches they could never throw properly. Most relied on a combination of two or three main pitches, constantly making adjustments every year to keep opponents from studying them too thoroughly and crushing them the following season.

Some people took a different path and threw only one kind of pitch. That pitch had to be so sharp that even when batters knew what was coming, they still could not hit it. Such pitchers could also achieve considerable success as relievers or Closing Pitchers. In short, once something reached the professional level, it was no longer a test of being broadly capable, but of mastering one specialty.

For Kōshū at this stage, rather than becoming a pitcher like a thousand-armed bodhisattva, armed with all kinds of breaking balls, it was better to follow Coach Ninomiya's hopes: slowly refine what he already had until his existing pitches were enough to dominate the field. Of course, that was beside the point. Right now, Kōshū had accidentally opened the door to changeups and was having far too much fun with it.

"OK! That was good! Next, alternate between fastballs and changeups."

Kōshū found his rhythm very quickly when switching back from the changeup to the fastball. He could almost immediately rediscover the familiar feeling on the very first pitch. But after throwing two fastballs in a row and returning to the changeup, he became uncertain again whether he could throw this pitch accurately with its current feel.

"Ah—this doesn't feel right."

The ball hit the ground early again. Miyuki dropped to his knees and blocked the bouncing baseball with his protective gear. He had done that more than ten times today, yet there was no less force in his dives.

When it came to baseball, this guy was dependable. That was also why Kōshū was willing to come out and practice with Miyuki. He showed up whenever called, was professional enough, and had no connection to the club. Miyuki was the only catcher Kōshū knew who met those conditions.

"Remember the feeling of your pitches properly." Though his mouth was still unpleasant.

"I will—" Kōshū seemed to have found something. When he had first started learning, the coach had told him to grip the ball deeper. Combined with his long fingers, using the OK grip for a changeup prevented him from getting proper force behind it. He kept unconsciously adding more friction, leaving the ball without enough energy to drive into the catcher's glove. Now, he needed to grip the ball more shallowly.

What would happen? It was an experiment anyway!

Miyuki crouched in front of home plate. He had not taken his casual complaint seriously, assuming the pitcher would need another dozen or so attempts before finding the feel. But then—

The ball left the pitcher's hand with a full, thorough arm swing, yet it seemed drunk. Its difference in speed from the fastball was visible to the naked eye, and it dropped beautifully and cleanly in front of home plate, grazing the bottom edge of the Strike Zone before driving into the catcher's motionless glove.

Miyuki caught the ball, and his body trembled involuntarily. What was with that pitch? "So you can throw it! Again!"

The pitcher on the other side caught the powerful return throw and was infected by the catcher's excitement. He threw two more consecutive changeups, both of which landed cleanly in the glove.

Miyuki did not call for another fastball. He urgently wanted the pitcher to lock in the feel of this delivery.

"A strike at the Outside Low Corner."

"A ball grazing the lower edge."

It was as if one pitch had opened all his blocked channels. The changeup that had just required slow adjustment instantly became Kōshū's Sure Thing, accuracy included.

"You really are amazing." After finishing practice for the day, even Miyuki could not help praising him.

"Oh, is that so? But without a fastball that makes batters tense every muscle in their bodies, this slow pitch will get crushed soon enough, right?" Kōshū was not that excited. Increasing pitch velocity was not easy.

At the beginning, he could adjust his posture and immediately gain five to seven kilometers per hour. After that, it became increasingly difficult. Only through daily training, persisting through quantitative change until it became qualitative change, could his velocity slowly break through.

"Surprisingly calm."

"Of course." It was already late when the two groups parted ways at the entrance.

Lang Zhi finally voiced what he had been holding in for a long time. "Coach Ninomiya doesn't want you learning new pitches, right? How are you going to explain this?"

"I'll pretend I learned it during one of my pitching sessions."

"But weren't you just making all sorts of strange attempts? If those attempts affected your pitching mechanics, it wouldn't be good not to tell the coaches."

Lang Zhi made a lot of sense, and Kōshū began to get a headache again.

Should he confess to the coaches that he had been secretly doing extra practice? And keeping it from Hayakawa Aki somehow made him feel like he had let him down.