Chapter 20

Short Summary
Tokuchi manages to get out all three of the Mariners clean-up hitters, but Takami figures out the trick to his pitches.

Long Summary
Takami wonders how Tokuchi can be so confident with just fastballs, and suspects there must be something else to his pitching. Tomas intentionally fouls a number of pitches to observe his opponent. He notes Tokuchi has ‘amazing’ ball control and his pitches barely graze the strike-zone. He ends up getting struck out.

At the dugout, Tomas says he was certain he was going to make contact on the final swing. He says it feels like the ball suddenly slipped away from the bat and the pitch can’t be an ordinary fastball. Brooklyn bats next and hits a fly ball that gets caught.

On Takami's turn, he lets the first two pitches go by. He prepares to swing on the third, but pulls back at the last second, getting struck out. However, the commentators note that Takami looks satisfied whilst Tokuchi looks displeased.

Takami tells his team he’s figured out why no can hit Tokuchi’s pitches. He primes the batter by throwing regular fastballs, then throws a fastball with a very low spin count, which suddenly dips just before the bat makes contact. This is especially effective combined with Tokuchi’s ability to ‘read the human psyche’ as he can always accurately predict whether the batter intends to swing or not.

Brooklyn flippantly comments, ‘it’s still a crap pitch.’ Takami sees his team have failed to realise that Tokuchi has beaten every opponent with this supposedly crap pitch, but doesn’t say anything.

Characters

 * Tokuchi Toua
 * Takami
 * Tomas
 * Brooklyn
 * Kojima