Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 602 - 149: Perfect Game, Perfect Match

Yahoo Dome, third base side, in the Seibu Lions player area.

Watanabe Hisashi sat there in his designated supervisor's seat, his face pale as he looked across the field to the SoftBank players' area—there, his old teammate from his player days, Kodama Komei, was joyfully patting the back of their young pitcher, with his mouth moving as if he was undoubtedly praising the excellent performance shown today.

Turning back to his own side: the Seibu players wearing the away blue jerseys looked around puzzled at their teammates beside them—when their plane landed in Fukuoka yesterday, they were full of hope to start the new season strong, aiming to win the series against SoftBank; yet just a few hours into the game, that hope seemed to have completely vanished into thin air.

The fans in the Yahoo Dome stands were passionately chanting the team's and individual players' support songs, releasing their enthusiasm fully; the huge electronic scoreboard showing 6:0 far above the outfield couldn't reflect the great disparity between the two teams—if it weren't for the early season, when many SoftBank hitters hadn't yet fully gotten into game form, the score gap should have been larger.

But at this moment, almost no one was paying attention to the score, whether it was the fans in the stands, the commentators in the broadcast room, or the viewers watching television; everyone's focus was once again directed at Lin Guanglai:

This 2016 season opener, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks versus Saitama Seibu Lions game, had gone six innings, and SoftBank had already scored 6 runs off the visitors, knocking the starting pitcher Kikuchi Yuusei off the mound early; on the other hand, Seibu's proud mountain thief batting line was completely silent before Lin Guanglai, with the number of hits they had managed to hit still being—

"Zero! Yes, viewers, the game has gone six innings, and Seibu Lions' hitters still haven't managed to hit even a single base hit, and the lineup has just barely completed two rounds—during the first two rounds of matchups, Lin Guanglai has already struck out 11 batters, with 5 consecutive strikeouts by now, could it be…"

The commentator's remarks were timely stopped, leaving plenty of room for imagination for viewers in front of the television; any viewer with even a slight understanding of baseball would begin to imagine upon seeing this data; if they were the kind who are well-versed in Nippon Professional Baseball records, they would probably already be anticipating what might happen next! 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The 21-year-old Lin Guanglai once again stood at the crossroads of history; in this game, he now had the chance to challenge simultaneously two new historical records:

Record one, single-game consecutive 10 strikeouts, held by Lin Guanglai himself, a record he set during his rookie season at the Sapporo Dome facing the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters;

As for record two, it is the ultimate dream of all pitchers, the perfect game of 27 up and 27 down—before today, only 15 people in Nippon Professional Baseball history have been able to achieve this feat, and 13 were even before the 1980s; and the most recent one should be traced back to May 18, 1994, achieved by Matsuhara Kanji of the Yomiuri Giants.

In the 22 years since then, especially after entering the 21st century, no other pitcher has been able to touch this record: the active player closest to the perfect game record was SoftBank's opponent today Seibu Lions' pitcher Takayuki Kishi, who once pitched a no-hit, one-walk "quasi-perfect game" in 2014, just one step away from the record.

And now, Lin Guanglai was just 9 outs away from becoming the 16th pitcher in history to achieve the perfect game—also the youngest achiever, and from his current state today, this scene really has a high probability of happening.

Top of the seventh inning, and it was still the lead-off batter Akiyama Shingo who walked into the hitting zone first for judgment: he had already faced Lin Guanglai twice in this game, if the first time getting struck out by the forked slider was considered a fluke, then being tricked by the change-up the second time and sent out with a strikeout was enough to prove the two were on completely different levels.

Akiyama Shingo, no less, was the batting champion in Nippon Professional Baseball, and was the one who broke Ichiro Suzuki's long-standing record; but when he was in the hitting zone facing Lin Guang, Akiyama Shingo felt like he was the Titanic that hit an iceberg, having no choice but to accept the slowly sinking outcome, and being swallowed up by the endless ocean.

Facing Lin Guanglai, just having to deal with two to three fastballs over 160 km/h was already difficult enough; then trying to distinguish between the forkball and the forked slider within less than half a second—was truly impossible!

The result this time was likewise unchanged:

Even though Akiyama Shingo tried his best to fight, attempting to disrupt Lin Guanglai with fouls to force a control error, today's Lin Guanglai was as stable as a machine running at full speed, each pitch being a good pitch, catching the opponent unprepared—after 4 pitches, Akiyama Shingo thus sent out his third strikeout of the game.

"Only 8 outs left!" The commentator in the broadcast room shouted excitedly, "and… the sixth consecutive strikeout!"