Chapter 5

Short Summary
Kinosaki and Kojima predict Tokuchi’s final pitch will be a fastball or breaking ball, and are both shocked when it turns out to be a slow ball. Tokuchi tells Kojima he looked down on the game.

Long Summary
Big Mama asks Kinosaki what he thinks Tokuchi’s upcoming ‘best pitch’ will be. As Tokuchi’s fastballs are only around 120km/h, Kinosaki guesses Tokuchi’s next pitch will have to be a breaking ball if he wants to win against a batter like Kojima. Given that Tokuchi has no glove, Kinosaki predicts he will throw a slider so Kojima cannot guess the pitch from his grip. Big Mama tells him he has poor imagination, claiming there is ‘an even more amazing pitch.’

Kojima tries to predict the sixth pitch, but is confident he’ll hit it no matter what it is. As it happens, he doesn’t even swing and the ball lands in the strike zone. He is shocked that Tokuchi pitched him a slow ball.

Big Mama explains to Kinosaki that the reason for Kojima’s defeat was arrogance. He assumed Tokuchi would give his greatest pitch against such a famous batter like himself, and Tokuchi used that to his advantage. Big Mama confirms that all Tokuchi’s bad pitches earlier were intentional, and gradually appeared to improve so that Kojima would assume the last pitch would be the best.

Kojima is outraged, and tells Tokuchi not to ‘fuck with’ him. Tokuchi responds, saying that Kojima accused him of looking down on baseball, when it was Kojima who looked down on this game, leaving Kojima looking shocked.