Eleven Starters

"Impossible. Last year, Narumiya had the same idea as you. He got a sick leave form from somewhere, and when the Manager saw it, he personally took Narumiya to the hospital for a check-up."

"Carlos!"

Narumiya Mei had already sensed something was off when Carlos spoke, but he was a bit far from Carlos. By the time he arrived, Carlos had already finished speaking.

The two immediately started wrestling.

Judging from Narumiya Mei's reaction, what Carlos said was likely true, and in an instant, Su Qing's heart sank.

"Early morning training is mainly running and stretching, it's not that important, and we'll do stretching again in the afternoon anyway. There's no point in going that early."

Harada understood what Su Qing meant. He just wanted to skip the early morning training during the training camp, right?

"We'll wake you up on time."

The whole dorm wakes up together, you still want to sleep in? Impossible!

"Ah!"

Su Qing suddenly wanted to go back to the United States to play baseball. There's no early morning training like this in the United States!

Early Saturday morning, Su Qing was dragged out of bed. They had to catch the first bus to Miyagi as quickly as possible because after playing Ikuei, a new practice match had been added for the afternoon. It was also with a local Miyagi school, and Coach Kunimoto, with the attitude of having made the trip anyway, might as well play a few more games, accepted this practice match.

This led to them having to leave even earlier!

Narumiya Mei started the game against Ikuei, with Su Qing playing third base. It was an extremely difficult game. Before even setting off, Su Qing had learned about Ikuei's situation from Harada.

Ikuei's situation was very similar to Inajitsu's in the past, with one pitcher carrying the whole team. Their starting Ace, Sato, was a power pitcher with a similar ball speed to Su Qing's current one. His control was naturally not as good as Su Qing's, but he could barely manage the nine-grid. In terms of breaking balls, in addition to the Changeup, he also had a Forkball.

Su Qing didn't know much about the Forkball. The only thing Su Qing knew was that this ball seemed very similar to the Knuckle Curve, fast and with quick, vertical movement. And Narumiya Mei seemed to be able to throw it.

Soon, Su Qing witnessed this type of ball in the game, completely dispelling his views on the Forkball. It was completely different from the Knuckle Curve!

Su Qing didn't know how to describe this ball. If you said it was a big Curveball, its change speed was faster than a Curveball, and it was only vertical. If you said it was a Knuckle Curve, it had an arc. It could only be classified as a variation of the Curveball.

Needless to say, facing this new type of ball, Su Qing swung and missed directly. To be honest, he was initially aiming for a low ball, who knew it would drop so much! He should have shortened his grip on the bat.

However, Su Qing eventually managed to hit one of Sato's straight balls, reaching second base. Unfortunately, the Inajitsu lineup lacked follow-up power, and once again left a runner stranded.

However, Ikuei also couldn't do anything about Narumiya Mei. Narumiya Mei, who had been trained by Su Qing, was no longer the same as before. His performance in normal games was very stable, making it impossible for Ikuei's players to seize any opportunities.

This could be said to be a complete pitcher's duel.

In the end, Narumiya Mei completed the game with 113 pitches, allowing 1 run, 8 strikeouts, 4 hits, 1 walk, and 0 errors. Ikuei's Sato completed the game with 141 pitches, allowing 3 runs, 6 strikeouts, 6 hits, 3 walks, and 0 errors.

Su Qing watched with trepidation. It was just a practice match, did they have to throw so many pitches? The highest number of pitches he threw in his previous life as a professional was 120 pitches, and he had four days of rest between starts! That game was only because it was the first complete game of his career that the coach kept him on the field. Normally, if he exceeded 80 pitches, the coach would consider replacing him. Because after 80 pitches, the quality of his pitches would decline to some extent.

After the game, Coach Kunimoto shook hands with the Ikuei Manager as usual, and the two naturally agreed to meet at Koshien. However, both of them were drumming in their hearts. Whether it was Tokyo or Miyagi, the competition was fierce, and it wouldn't be easy to get into Koshien!

In the afternoon game, Su Qing was the starting pitcher, but the defensive players were all substitutes, so although Su Qing was very strong, the game was still evenly matched.

In the end, Su Qing threw 91 pitches in 8 innings, allowing 3 runs (0 earned runs), 11 strikeouts, 5 hits, 0 walks, and 0 errors. Inajitsu lost the game 4:5.

Su Qing really didn't expect that the first game he started as a pitcher in this life would result in a loss. In the last inning, Inajitsu scored two consecutive points, and Coach Kunimoto replaced Su Qing. As a result, Maruse gave up two points. Su Qing was so angry that he almost exploded, but he couldn't say anything.

The coordination wasn't good enough, the entire Inajitsu defense was very disjointed!

Can you believe all three runs he gave up were due to errors! But that's just fate. If he had been more careful and not let the batters even touch his pitches, there wouldn't have been any errors.

In the evening, the team returned to Tokyo. The next day, Yamamori, who had arranged it in advance, came to Inajitsu for a practice match.

Yamamori lost to Urashima Academy from Saitama in the finals, taking the runner-up spot, which was a pity.

When Su Qing met with Tada in the evening, he learned that Tada had performed exceptionally well, actually leading the team to defeat Sosei's main team, which was truly remarkable!

The other Inajitsu team wasn't so lucky; they lost to Yakushi in an all-out slugfest, ending with a score of 13-6.

Actually, when Su Qing heard the name Yakushi, he knew Inajitsu was going to lose. Yakushi had just hired Todoroki Raizo as their coach this year. Yakushi's rise had only just begun!

Coach Kunimoto, upon returning, naturally heard this news and was quite surprised. The second-string team led by Tada, mainly composed of first and second-year players, actually managed to win, which was truly unbelievable. The team that played against Yakushi was composed of third-year players who were eager to prove themselves in order to secure a spot on the first-string team for their final summer. They would never underestimate any match!

They were all a pack of hungry wolves! How could they have lost so badly? Coach Kunimoto immediately looked up Yakushi's information and was instantly drawn to Yakushi's impressive lineup, especially Todoroki Raichi. Even just watching the video, he could sense that this kid was extraordinary.

Back in the dorm, Su Qing was feeling down, still dwelling on the fact that he had taken the loss. If Coach Kunimoto hadn't taken him out in the last inning, he would definitely have gotten the win!

This time, Narumiya Mei uncharacteristically switched roles with Su Qing and came over to comfort him. Although he almost made Su Qing angry to death, Su Qing understood that he meant well, but he was still very unhappy.

Because Su Qing wouldn't have the opportunity to start in the upcoming practice matches, the Manager chose to take another look at Maruse and Kuwahara. There were a total of three practice matches, and they were scheduled for Maruse, Kuwahara, and Narumiya Mei, respectively. That meant the only chance left for Su Qing was to come in as a reliever. Too tragic, too tragic.

Regarding the collaboration, the main reason for this collaboration is that the current Inajitsu is too invincible, and the collaboration plot will be more interesting. The world is a parallel world and is actually unrelated, just using the name.

Also, regarding the dormitory issue, I seem to have magically turned it into a five-person dorm!!! I don't want to change it, so let's just leave it like that.

The Ikuei character design mainly references Sendai Ikuei from 2007.