For a pitcher so confident in his control, after throwing one pitch to the corner, there was a high chance he would go crosswise next. The last one had been low and outside, so this one should be high and inside.
It was coming. The moment Carlos saw the ball's trajectory, he knew his guess had been right. So he really was going crosswise. Too bad—I'd already seen through it!
Carlos swung his bat without hesitation, but halfway through the swing, he realized something was wrong. Why didn't he feel anything? Was this pitch really that weak?
Taking a closer look, Carlos realized there was no ball in front of his bat at all.
"Smack!"
"Strike!"
The ball had disappeared?
Yamato Shuichiro expressionlessly took the baseball from catcher Furuta.
Carlos stepped out of the batter's box and began thinking carefully. Why had he missed just now? He had clearly aimed for the ball when he swung. Could Yamato Shuichiro's fastball also break before reaching home plate, like Su Qing's? No, that couldn't be it. If it were, why hadn't the first pitch changed? And the information he had received hadn't mentioned anything like that.
What exactly had happened just now?
Perhaps only the Akitsudai battery, along with Su Qing watching from his god's-eye view, knew what had happened. If even Carlos could guess that they might go crosswise, would they really stupidly throw crosswise? Of course not. Neither Yamato nor Furuta lacked intelligence. Both of them played baseball with their brains.
So the two had pulled a little trick. Using Shuichiro's exceptional control, they had tucked the ball slightly farther inside. Carlos, misled by his first impression, saw that the direction was right and naturally assumed the ball would also go to the corner. But that wasn't the case. The