Once again Ken entered his wind up and sent a blitzing fastball, this time right down the middle of the strike zone.
As if he was expecting another ball, the batter did not swing, only to feel regret a moment later.
“Strikeout!”
The player looked crestfallen as he made his way back to the dugout, however he received plenty of consoling words from his teammates when he returned.
Coach Goto’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the smiling catcher.
‘He’s got good instincts…’
As the next batter came up to the field, Carlos grabbed his gear and waited. His eyes met the coach’s for a moment before he shook his head in disappointment as if to say “I told you so.”
The next batter was sent back quicker than the last, also falling victim to the intense pitches of the opponent.
As Carlos made his way to the batters box, both the field and the audience went quiet, as if affected by the intense atmosphere.
Like old rivals, Carlos and Ken stared at each other from their respective positions. With the sun sitting right above their heads, it was like a scene out of a movie.
“Let’s see how you do when the count is 0-0.” He announced, getting into his overbearing stance.
“Hehe…” Ken chuckled dryly in response, not bothering to engage in the theatrics. He would let his pitching do the talking, like usual.
After receiving the lead from Yuta, he felt his body heat up in anticipation.
WHOOSH
DING
The ball was struck by the metal bat, yet it was clear just by the sound that the hit was a little off target.
“Foul.”
A grin formed on Carlos’s face. Out of the 5 balls total he’d faced from Ken, this was the first time his bat had made contact with the ball.
His already firm confidence began to overflow, filling him with strength.
Yuta frowned. The course was a difficult one, yet the guy had still managed to make contact with it.
‘Let’s try one of the outside corners.’ He thought, placing his glove out in front of him.
Ken nodded, before sending his pitch directly to the outstretched glove above the plate.
DING
“Foul.”
‘Again…’
DING
“Foul.”
It seemed that the previous scenario that happened against Akira in the first innings was repeating itself. Yet instead of Carlos intentionally fouling the ball, he was doing his best to just make contact.
The more pitches he saw, the more he could make out from them. With his natural talent he’d always been great at making contact, but it was proving rather difficult right now.
‘One more pitch, then I’ll go for the knockout.’
As long as he saw a pitch enough times, he was confident in being able to get a hit.
Feeling a little flustered, Yuta called for an inside pitch. However, Ken shook his head in response, already having a pitch in mind.
After a few more head shakes, he finally got the lead he wanted.
Yuta seemed a little surprised, however he quickly gathered his composure and placed his glove into position.
A small grin appeared on Ken’s face as he entered his wind up.
WHOOSH
PAH
Carlos’s eyes widened in shock after not feeling the expected resistance on his bat. He quickly turned to see that the ball was indeed inside the catchers glove before turning his attention to Ken.
“3 outs, changeover!”
Ken jogged towards the dugout, sending a taunting gaze Carlos’s way.
“So it turns out you do have a breaking ball… Interesting.” He mumbled to himself before heading back to grab his glove and hat.
Yuta quickly caught up to Ken and asked him, “Why did you throw your forkball now? Wouldn’t it have been better to use it later?”
What he said made sense. Now that Carlos was aware of his forkball, it probably wouldn’t be as effective later on. However, at the same time it was also another pitch that the guy had to worry about when facing him.
Ken shrugged and replied nonchalantly. “I guess I just wanted to strike him out.”
‘It’s actually for a mission though…’ he said in his heart.
Yuta felt like the argument was a bit immature, but he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Sometimes it felt like Ken was like a wise old man, but other times like this he seemed like a petty kid.
If he was honest, he preferred the petty version of Ken. It matched well with his own play style.
The next couple of innings went by without any changes to the status quo. While the Yokohama batters were at least able to hit the occasional pitch from Kazuhiro, Shuei could not even touch Ken’s balls.
If one were to explain in the simplest terms, it would be that Ken’s form seemed completely refined, whereas Kazuhiro was still in the midst of evolving.
Unfortunately for Yokohama, even if they could hit the balls, no one could convert. Both Ken and Hiroki had managed to hit doubles, whereas no one else even made it to first base.
However, even they were starting to have trouble with those pitches the further along the game went. By the time Hiroki went up to bat in the 7th innings, he’d been struck out after only 5 pitches.
Yet since there had been no more scoring from either side, the bottom of the 7th innings started with the same score of 5-1 in favor of Yokohama.
This was the first game in this tournament that had gone past 5 innings, yet everyone still seemed to be rather comfortable.
All of the strength and endurance training that they’d gone through after practice with Ken seemed to have done wonders for their stamina.
But it could also be the fact that they just needed to stand around and do nothing while Ken struck out every batter on the opposing team.
Either way, it seemed that the longer game had no impact on them.
Even Ken on the mound who had thrown close to 60 balls didn’t even look like he was breaking a sweat.