13 Stolen Bases

No matter how wary they were, the game had to continue. This time, Kamizu played it much safer. He called for a ball on the Inside Corner for the first pitch. Seeing a fastball, Carlos had wanted to swing, but when he realized it was a ball, he forcibly checked his bat.

Kamizu immediately became alert. Carlos was not the type to swing at the first pitch, yet he had been so aggressive this time. Something was off!

To probe further, Kamizu called for another borderline pitch. This time, Carlos could not hold back and swung outright, but unfortunately, he fouled it off.

Kamizu stood up, asked the home plate umpire for a new ball, and tossed it to Ogata as his mind raced.

He had been aggressively swinging at inside pitches and outside pitches, high pitches and low pitches alike. So he was not targeting the location, but the pitch type?

You wanted to hit fastballs, right? Then hit them!

Kamizu was very confident in Ogata's fastball. After all, only the fastball was a pitcher's lifeline!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

After another whistle, Carlos returned to the Batter's Box with some irritation. He had made it too simple in his mind. How could the fastball of a pitcher capable of throwing a Fastball possibly be so easy to hit?

Kamizu made no attempt to hide it and called for nothing but fastballs, but Carlos only managed to foul every one of them off.

With two strikes and one ball, Carlos still had no intention of changing his strategy. He believed that if he hit a few more pitches, he would be able to knock out a base hit.

But Kamizu did not want to drag things out with him. If the very first at-bat turned into a prolonged battle, Ogata-senpai would definitely grow impatient, and it might even carry through the whole inning. It was better to end this quickly.

Irritated as he was, once Carlos truly prepared to bat, he forgot all his frustrations and focused intently on the pitcher.

The moment the ball left the pitcher's hand, Carlos noticed that something was wrong. Not only was the release point far off, but the speed was different too.

It was not a fastball. A breaking ball? No, a Changeup!

And the Changeup happened to fall right within Carlos's hunting range.

"Bang!"

The ball shot toward Left Field like lightning. Just as everyone thought it would slip through the Left Side Infield, Yamamori's Third Baseman made a diving stop. By then, Carlos was only halfway to first base.

The Third Baseman struggled to his feet, grabbed the ball, and prepared to fire it to first. But as he threw, Carlos reached top speed and made it to the bag before the first baseman could receive the ball.

The first baseman did not handle the throw cleanly either. Fortunately, the ball did not bounce away, or Carlos would have charged straight for second.

Ever since Su Qing had become Inashiro's Second Ace and Pseudo Cleanup Hitter, Su Qing no longer needed to help runners change their gear or toss away their bats.

After all, strength came first on the field. Those with ability did not need to do anything.

"Tut, tut, tut. Yamamori's catcher is going to have a hard time now. If I remember right, his Pop Time is pretty slow."

"Su Su, stop chewing gum. Aren't you afraid you'll swallow it while talking?"

Su Qing rolled his eyes. What was so special about talking while chewing gum? He could even dump a whole handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth and spit out all the shells in one go.

"What is Pop Time?" Harada asked this time. It was his first time hearing the term.

"Oh, it's the time it takes a catcher to get the ball from his glove to second base."

"I see." Harada understood the concept, but he had simply never heard the term before.

"Kamizu's Pop Time is a full 2.58 seconds. By the time he gets the ball to second, it'll already be too late."

"That long?"

Harada did not ask where Su Qing had gotten his data. This was not the first time Su Qing had provided data with no apparent source. Whenever asked, Su Qing would mumble incoherently and refuse to explain, but the data was always correct.

"Kamizu's receiving stance and awareness are both terrible, but his arm strength is the real weakness. Other people only take a fraction of a second to receive the ball and throw to second, while he takes over a full second."

"Receiving stance?" Harada understood awareness—it meant judging whether a runner would steal and reacting promptly.

"Kamizu squats too rigidly. That stance lets him receive the ball more steadily, but it also makes it hard to draw strength from the position when standing up. So he gets up slowly."

Harada was half-convinced. It was the first time he had heard that the speed of standing up was related to a catcher's receiving stance.

"Then do you have any good methods?"

Su Qing hesitated when he heard that. Then he glanced at Harada and brought up something completely unrelated.

"Are you flexible?"

Su Qing did have a good method. Before his rebirth, it had already become quite popular, but it placed extremely high demands on a catcher's physical condition and could not be practiced casually. If someone's physical condition was insufficient and they forced themselves to train it anyway, they could easily get injured.

That was right—the receiving stance used for nearly a decade by that iron catcher who squatted like a certain bird.

Harada hesitated too. He did not know how to answer.

"I guess I'm okay?"

As a catcher, he considered himself quite flexible.

"Can you do the splits?"

"Cough, cough, cough! What did you say?"

"It doesn't matter if you can't do a full split. Even a partial one will do. Can you?"

Harada shook his head. The only person on the team who could do the splits was Yamaoka Riku.

"Then forget it."

"Why?"

"You aren't flexible enough. If I teach you and you force yourself to practice it, something will go wrong."

"Is it that hard?"

Su Qing nodded. In his previous life, a bunch of kids who knew nothing had seen professional stars squat like that and thought it looked impressive, so they copied them blindly. In the end, they ruined their own bodies through training. He didn't want that happening to Harada, especially since they were going to form a battery.

"Is it still in time for me to start training now? I mean flexibility."

Harada didn't want to give up any opportunity to improve himself.

Su Qing thought for a while before finally nodding. After all, not everyone had a body like Molina's. But Major League catchers trained it too, so it should be something that could be developed through practice.

Seeing Su Qing nod, Harada immediately prepared to revise his training regimen and add more flexibility exercises.

"You seem to know quite a lot about catchers. Did you learn it from one of your old partners?"

Harada asked curiously.

When Su Qing heard that, he thought, Of course. As a pitcher, catchers were naturally the people I worked most closely with. Catching families often invited me to help introduce their children to the sport, too, so I knew even more about catchers. But how was he supposed to explain that to Harada? He couldn't exactly mention his previous life.

"Uh, when I played ball in the United States before, professional players often came to the local community. One of them was a catcher, and whenever he taught the other kids catcher training, I listened in too."

"Huh?! A professional player? Major League?! Really?!"