771 replies to this topic

[RoKrish]

@godamfireV:

I actually couldn't load that gif, as it would not let me post it on the site with it in gif form.

 

The reason I think that the zero seam is more likely to be the palmball as opposed to the Vulcan changeup or the fork, is that Miyuki mentions it is a high speed pitch, something that the vulcan (noted to be slower than his circle changeup), and the forkball (is always slower than the splitter) which is how I came to the conclusion that it had to be the palmball. 

 

You bring up an interesting thing regarding Sawamura's OG fastball, that people think that it was a 2-seam fastball.  First of all the two seamer is known to be notably harder to throw than a 4-seamer, as you can't really control it, and certainly not when you are that young (remember sawamura has been pitching competitively  since he was 12 at least). Second a two seamer generally follows one of two paths, down with little armside movement, a sinker, or down with heavy armside break, a shuuto. Generally speaking pitchers whom throw 2-seamers (called sinkerballers in the US) have one of these to tracks on their pitches (unless you're Greg Maddux, in which case you had both). Sawamura's OG Fastball didn't have any predetermined track, and he could not really control it. Not to mention he was not holding it in a manner that a fastball is held, that is to say with two fingers and a thumb, which we know from what he says when he brings out his palmball for the first time.

 

The way I, on reconsideration, would call for that pitch is if sawamura is behind in the count after 3 pitches. If he is ahead I would not throw it, as it would not really help him get the batter out. If he is behind in the count, after three pitches (which is shockingly rare for Sawamura), I either need to end the AB, or get even in the count. If the batter makes contact 9 times out of 10 its soft contact and a groundball. an infield fly, or a foul which helps me even the count. The way that Miyuki calls for it seems to be the thinking that Sawamura can only be a contact type pitcher, something that irks me about this is the types of pitches he has in his arsenal aren't typical of a contact type pitcher, nor even really a finesse type pitcher. This brings me to my next thought.

I think that Sawamura is actually a strike out pitcher whom can pitch to contact. At least, thats how he's been built by Terajima, which might be the most bizzare thing about this. So we are presented with this narrative that Furuya is a power pitcher who is only interested in strike outs, and sawamura is this plucky pitch to contact pitcher who doesn't really have much going for him. This is actually pretty untrue, as Sawamura is just as interested as Furuya is in getting strike outs, its just that he understands (which sort of goes against the narrative that he is a complete idiot) the objective of the game isn't to get 27 K's its to get 27 outs as quickly and safely as possible, something that a lot of the characters in universe have sort of confused by. If, for example, Shunshin didn't try and strike Raichi out in the past fall tournament, and instead pitches to contact against him, he might give up a single, and not blow the game for his team. I am not criticizing Shunshin for this decision, since he nearly had Raichi dead to rights in that AB, its just that Sawamura would never let a thing like his personal wish to fight it out with the other teams strongest player, blind himself to the necessities of winning. Sawamura is just as interested and capable of getting K's as any pitcher in the Series its just that he is willing to subvert his personal wants in exchange for the teams success. How often have we seen this kid complain about anything that the team does to him (short answer like twice, once when he is told he can't pitch by Kataoka back in his first year when he just joined, and the other time after he has to relieve Furuya in that Ichidai game and he never even verbally complained) in the cause of Victory? Sawamura is a pitch to contact player because he can do it, and Seidou needed that, since they have two guys who can get K's in Furuya and Nori, and they didn't have a contact guy to get the out of Jams. And if anyone says that he is not capable of mowing down batters for fun, I will remind you all of the Ouya Game where he gets an Immaculate inning K'ing 3 batters on 9 pitches, something that so called Strikeout pitchers like Mukai, Mei, Kousei, Hongou, and Furuya have yet to do on screen. If there is a current pitcher whom is comparable in the kinds of pitches he throws (there isn't really, having the two directional movement on his breaking fastballs, a split, a vulcan changeup, and a power changeup doesn't really exist) and in his mentality, it would be Corey Kluber based on the fact that he can strikeout (265 K's this year) and use other methods to keep runners off the basepaths with a WHIP of 0.869 in other words being a two tool pitcher. The only real difference is that Sawamura basically never walks anybody and a lower velocity, and Kluber has the "thing" a breaking ball that he can throw with the same grip and have it break in three different ways which is just nasty. Even their four seamers are almost the same, they both have very little movement on them (sawamura's fastball basically doesn't tail or sink like it used to now a days), but the other pitches in their arsenal make that pitch come to life.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

@elsa16:

Thanks for the raws! Wasn't there supposed to be a 2 week break after the last ones?

Well you can see the results of the Americans getting adjusted to Mei, they aren't intimidated by the changeup, which is saying something. In addition it seems stupidly competitive on Inui's part to play the tough guy, he just got plonked on his head by a bat. This is a nothing game, there is no reason for either team to do something as dumb as try to prove their toughness, for both sides, they both have to go and play actual games later in the summer so trying to act tough when the American player didn't even try to run on him after he dropped the ball (by the way the reason he didn't run was that he was already out, batters interference) and trying to act tough is going to get you exactly 0 points. I also like the fact that Terajima is not portraying the Americans as a bunch of jerks (unless you're Umemiya), as they all seem way more concerned about Inui getting hit on the head than anyone in team tokyo after he gets up.

 

Also @GodamfireV, isn't Conrad doing the thing that Kershaw does when he is on the bench with the massive towel wrap on his throwing arm?

[pepbut]

Here is raw of chapter 107 https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5499503103?lp=home_main_thread_pb&mo_device=1&pn=0&

What's, the Fauk

 

But seriously I guess Mei's changeup is legit Pedro Martinez level, fun times.

[GodamfireV]

Chapter 107: The tyrant of the mound.

 

Side note: The Cleanups of the US team faces the Ace of Japan team, Narumiya Mei. This inning will become the key turning point of the match

 

Opening note: He ain't scared of anyone. The dynamic prince of the capital

 

Mei gets a Strikes with his Slider.

3rd batter - SS - Reinhart: Damn...You must be joking, what's up with this Slider. This is not supposed to be Frisbee man...breaking pitches on top of his fastball, all of his arsenals are first rate. On top of that he exudes this kind of pressure...

 

Batter struck out on a changeup

Batter: Fuck! (lol)

Umemiya: Alright! 2 clean outs! He kills them without any mercy. A tyrant on the mound

Ishikawa smirks: tyrant of the mound =w=

Inui: What a changeup that was...Not only was it off-pace, the sinking action was very sharp.

Miyuki: He has certainly evolved that pitch. I want to take a look from the batter box as well. 

 

Up to bat 4th batter - Catcher - Carlyle

Inui: His bat swinging speed is on a different level, on top of that he has acute bat control. Obviously, the batter we have to be most cautious with on the American team.

Miyuki: Previously we got his attention to the in-course pitches to get him out. How would they use the out-course pitches this time.

 

Batter swings a fouls ball to the right line.

 

Miyuki: Such easy power. To get this guy out won't be an easy job.

 

Batter whiplash big time on the changeup

Carlyle: What the f@ck! A Circle Change! That was some filthy trajectory.

Players in the dugout: Carlyle didn't manage to tap it?

Carlyle recalling his teammate's introduction to Mei being the runner up pitcher of Koshien as well as Ace of Inajitsu, a famous baseball high school: Koshien...and the heaven sent child of the Japanese holy land...Narumiya Mei.

Umemiya: Alright, got him good!...

 

Carlyle whiplashed so hard his bat hits Inui's on the back of his head.

 

Carlyle: My bat? Are you okay?

Inui: *no problem (*English)

Miyuki: You okay?

Inui: For a moment I didn't realize what happened..but...since the batter stood dead on his feet...so I tagged him out. (because Inui dropped the ball after he was hit on the head, by normal rules the batter would have been allowed to run)

Mei: You instinctively did that...

Umemiya: Ooh, he's acting like nothing happened. Cool stuffs Inui!

Inui: The name is Inui Kengou!!

Miyuki: He got hit even from that kind of position. I have to be careful myself as well. (injury flag?)

 

--At Seidou's field-- Seidou vs. Yamamori is starting.

 

Ending note: The match where Furuya starts and Miyuki being away is underway. VS. Koshien top 4 Yamamori Gakuin, Play Ball!

 

Don't know whether Inui's injury was supposed to pair Miyuki with Mei or not but suddenly this seems like a potential injury flag for Miyuki as well. LOL better watch out. And for freaking finally that match with Yamamori is starting!

[Gunden]

A couple things that I wanted to note, @RoKrish listed Johnny cueto and Tim Lincecum as short power pitchers, but at 5’11 basically 6 feet, I wouldn’t consider that short, even for baseball athletes, even pitchers are in that range, from 5’9 to 6’7. In reality, to reach high 90s, you have to be a certain height or else it can really be almost physically impossible to create enough velocity with your bodies. I would guess anything under 5’8 it would be extremly hard to pitch a ball in the high 90s. Kelvin Herrera is 5’10 and I can’t find anyone else who has thrown over 100 that is near that or shorter.

Another point, on sawamuras palmball, from what I’ve interpretated, it’s a pitch that is similar to his old moving fastball which broke randomly. I feel like the gif you showed was just one of the various breaks that can happen. And as Miyuki said it is a return to his moving fastball.

And @godamfirev, you included an increase in perceived speed when Sawamura throws to the high inside, wouldn’t you include an increase to all other pitchers as well, if not why just Sawamura?

Edited by Gunden, 01 January 2018 - 07:27 AM.

[GodamfireV]

@Gunden
Of course, that applies to every pitchers. I just only mentioned Sawamura because that’s who @Rokrish was discussing. One of the main reasons why Furuya high fastball produces so much swing and miss despite being obviously Ball.

[Ricehime]

Hello, took a break from the manga and I'm wondering if ace race is finished yet. Still haven't read the last chapters ☺️

[RoKrish]

@gunden,

I'm not talking about Mei or Sawamura at this point throwing high 90s or even a hundred, as you say it is almost physically impossible for a pitcher shorter than 5'10'' to throw a hundred, its just that Mei and Sawamura are a bit taller than Marcus Stroman, whose fastball sits at 94 mph and Mei throws 91+ mph (148 kph as of last summer) while Sawamura throws 85 ish (135kph). All I was saying was that the Americans shouldn't be that surprised by the fact that mei has gas. I choose Cueto and Lincecum as examples since they play and used to play on the west coast, and were a bit smaller than normal for power pitchers who are normally giants (heh pun since Lincecum was and Cueto is a Giant). And as @godamfireV said a high and tight fastball from anyone looks faster than a fastball anywhere else. As @GodamfireV said, the reason why Furuya gets batters to chase fastballs that are way out of the zone is because of that. I was only discussing Sawamura because in that series of posts we were talking about Sawamura specifically, but in principle and in practice a fastball high and in, followed by an offspeed delivery low and away, or vice versa with regards to order, fools 99% of all batters into believing the fastball is faster, or the offspeed is slower, than they really are.

 

In addition you made a mention of how the palmball is a return to his moving fastball. I don't disagree with you on this, its just that he didn't really have a Fastball per say, rather he was only throwing a palmball but shifting his grip and holding the ball randomly. (when he was learning how to throw Changeups he says thats how he used to grip his fastball and Tojou and Kanemaru are surprised by it saying what kind of coach did he have as a kid) So I looked back at the episode where we get to see Sawamuras OG Fastball from the perspective of the catcher (Episode 6 in Season 1), and in fact you are sort of right, the path of that Fastball is similar to the movement on his palmball. The big difference is that Sawamura's palmball moves later, with sharper movement and has more sink on it. This is shown in Episode 22 of Season 2. In addition Sawamuras OG Fastball would go in every direction down, gloveside, or armside, and he couldn't really tell where it was going. The Palmball goes down and armside normally for Sawamura.

[Gunden]

Watching the seidou Inashiro match, Furuya got two hits off of Mei fair and square. Maybe they should start him in left for the summer finals, and against the tougher teams. If I recall he got hits off of Amahisa and Sanada before as well. And that gives you the option to have Yui and Yuki pinch hit freely for the pitcher. And you can have Asou on reserve for the end for defense.

[GodamfireV]

Watching the seidou Inashiro match, Furuya got two hits off of Mei fair and square. Maybe they should start him in left for the summer finals, and against the tougher teams. If I recall he got hits off of Amahisa and Sanada before as well. And that gives you the option to have Yui and Yuki pinch hit freely for the pitcher. And you can have Asou on reserve for the end for defense.

 

Furuya got 2 hits from Mei, fair and square but we should also consider the fact that Mei was partly underestimating Furuya and was trying to show off. The first one Furuya hit was Mei's crossfire which Mei threw right down the middle, a rare slip-off from Mei, if not an obvious cocky moment of trying to show off to Furuya. The second one Furuya hit did show his skill though.

 

He has not managed to hit from Amahisa ever, at least on screen, because Seidou has only played Ichidaisan once since the story starts and as a result, they have only faced Amahisa once as well. That match was the Spring Tournament SF and Amahisa owned pretty much the whole Seidou lineup starting from the 2nd inning and the narrative was focusing on Furuya's pitching that was in shamble instead of his hitting so we didn't manage to see any of his at bats. The assumption would be he didn't manage to hit anything like the rest of the lineup. Perhaps you mistook Sawamura's single for Furuya.

 

For me, I can't recall Furuya has ever hit off of Sanada either. In the first match Seidou played Yakushi in Summer, once Sanada got on the mound, Furuya got off the mound so he clearly didn't hit anything from Sanada. On the second match they played before Fall Tourney, the same thing happened as well, Furuya got subbed to Sawamura, Sanada got on the mound; once Furuya got back on the mound, the game was fast forwarded. He may have gotten a hit out of Mishima but Mishima is just a second rate pitcher and just fluke most of the time. The 3rd game Seidou played with Yakushi in Fall, Furuya clearly didn't hit anything because he was a closer. 

 

The point is, Furuya has gotten hits off of ​some ​good pitchers like Mei, Hongou (single), and Ouno (Hakuryu's pitcher) but at the same time he hasn't been as consistent as the other batters either. Regardless, he's good enough to bats 4th in the 2nd string (that alone doesn't give him enough credits though) so he's at least more useful than Kanemaru right now in terms of batting. However, judging purely in terms of his defensive skills, I would rather put Shirasu permanently at right field and Asou permanently at left field instead of letting Furuya starts as an out-fielder, especially not against a powerhouse. I don't think sacrificing defensive prowess just to add a little more power into the lineup will be that beneficial against the powerhouses. In earlier rounds where he doesn't start as a pitcher, then yes, he can play left-field instead of Asou to utilize his batting power but most of the time, his attention should be on pitching. 

 

What you suggest may be useful for Seidou once the current 3rd years retire but as of right now, the current lineup is already quite well-rounded. Their main problem is not even connecting but converting which means aside from the clean-ups and Haruichi, the rest aren't clutch enough which they still have time to improve. I'm hoping Takatsu would step up big time before Summer and fill in that late lineup lack of clutch hitting batter. 

Edited by GodamfireV, 02 January 2018 - 02:43 PM.

[RoKrish]

@Gunden:

I have to agree with @GodamfireV, Furuya is a good hitter, but his defense is notably bad, especially in comparison to Asou. Asou is actually one of the more clutch players, in the last tournament when he was the everyday LF he only failed in one of his opportunities to score with RISP, in the final, where it took one of the best plays in the series by Yakushi's Second baseman to rob him of a hit. Its just that he doesn't really make hard contact and get HR's that he is seen as a bad hitter, he's not great, but he's actually ok. Furuya is a good hitter but he would detract from Seidou's defensive abilities especially against teams of similar or greater quality than them, which is especially important if you are up against Amahisa or Mei let alone Hongou. Unless the guy is slugging greater than 500 I don't want him facing any real pitching. The interesting question is what do you want to do with the final few spots on the roster. You have to take 8 players, (Miyuki, Sawamura, Kuramochi, Furuya, Haruichi, Shirasu, Tojou and Kawakami), you should take another 4 (Asou, Zono, kanemaru, and Ono) and that leaves you with 6 more for the Koshien and 8 more for the prelims. Masashi and Yamaguchi probably make it for power hitting, as pinch hitter for the pitcher and a back up 2nd baseman I would probably take Kijima since he has a pretty high OBP. This leaves three positions up for grabs for the Koshien and 5 for the Tokyo Tournament. Personally I would like another pitcher, but Tojou technically speaking can do that as well, so thats okay for now. For reasons of plot I can see both Yui and Okamura make it for the Tokyo Tournament at least, So that leaves 3 holes in the roster, and Takatsu, depending on how he does as a PH in the next few games (I could see him come in for Furuya) could make it since he has pop and is a lefty hitter and has the athleticism (as a Shortstop) to play pretty much everywhere so he can come in and help out offensively without being a complete defensive liability, if he can develop properly in the coming weeks along with Kanemaru this goes a long way to solving Seidou's back half of the lineup's power problem, probably by platooning them (Takatsu vs LHPs and Kanemaru vs RHPs). I would like to see if they bring along Seto as he has the speed to grab a few bags if needed or if they take Higasa another power hitter.

[The Final Boss]

A circle change huh. So Mei is a south paw who has a CC  that breaks horizontal to the right. Thats pretty dirty against right hand batters who should have an advantage over the lefty. 

Edited by The Final Boss, 03 January 2018 - 06:17 AM.

[RoKrish]

@The Final Boss:

Thats been pretty well established, Mei K'd the best batter in the series (Yuki Tetsuya) lefty on Righty back in act 1 with that Circle Changeup. He's just made that pitch nastier with more of a down and out break akin to Max Scherzer's Changeup, thats why the Americans are whiplashing at that pitch. It's one of the four nastiest pitches in DnA, by my reckoning, alongside Hongou's splitter, Kousei's slider, and Sawamura's Cutter. It also really completes the set for a lefty strikeout pitcher, as it gave him something that broke away from the righty hitter, which he lacked as his slider and curve break into a righty. The same is true for Sawamura's cutter, it gave him an equalizer against lefties who could sit a bit better on his Circle Change, because they can't really do much, unless you are a Professional Ichiro clone (in high school Ichiro played Pitcher and hit .502 with 131 SB) with great plate discipline (I guess that actually makes Mima more of Ty Cobb clone what with his speed and ability to take a walk when offered). In any case you have the handedness advantage backwards, Righties struggle more often than they succeed against lefties especially since lefties throw from a very different arm angle especially in the case of guys coming in from a lower arm slot like Mei and Sawamura (i guess mukai as well but hes not as good as Sawamura or Mei). Lefties have a huge advantage as most players and most pitchers are right handed so a lefty will spin the ball differently as it comes out of their left hand, release the ball differently and get different movement on the ball. For example Sawamura (LHP) and Sanada (RHP) have the same pitch, the two seamer (Shuuto), that breaks back arm side. Sawamura and Sanada pitch from the same slot, a high three-quarters, so to a player the ball should look the same right? Wrong the ball goes flatter and to the right in the case of Sanada, while Sawamura gets the ball to move down and to the left. To a Righty, Sanada's Shuuto is merely troublesome (if they backed up in the box, they could probably drive it to right field), while sawamura's Shuuto is devastating (they have to swing because if they think its a 2 seamer but its the 4-seamer instead they get a called strike on the outside edge and if sawamura wants to throw it inside the batter has to dodge as the ball tails back starting from their body back into the zone, and the ball moves sharply down and out from the center of the zone) but it sort of reverses versus a lefty, as they aren't really fooled by a lefties optical illusion, although they also tend to struggle a bit more with lefties than with righties, if only a bit.

[Gunden]

Meis changeup grip isn’t a circle change. It seems he uses a star grip or something similar. I just saw the grip in the anime I forget which episode.

I’d argue that it is the opposite on what is more challenging for a batter. I’d say a hard 2 seamer from a righty into a righty’s chest would be more effective then trying to use a 2 seam to curve the outside of the zone by a lefty. (but obviously that’s why lefty is more effective to righty batters, and vice versa, because it’s easier to learn sliders and cutter breaking naturally away from the hand away, then it is to master a breaking pitch to break back torwards the throwers hand like a 2 seamer.) If I had to choose between pitching a breaking pitch that breaks away from the batter or to the batter, I’d always choose torwards the batter. That’s the whole point of why sanada is so effective, is that he breaks the ball into the batter, whether it being a lefty or righty. That is also why you normally don’t see people throwing cutters/sliders if they are facing a batter of the same stance (ie righty pitcher righty hitter) because rarely do you have such a good break it can be effective against both righty an lefty. Unless, obviously, you have an insane cutter like sawamura(however a talented batter like mima could make contact with it, something a right handed batter would almost not possibly be able to do). Same with Amahisa, whose slider has a lot of break vertically to be effective against both.

I apologize if what I said was confusing because of bad wording. Basically I think that you should always pitch breaking pitches going into the chest of the batter, and refrain from pitching them going away from the batter as the possibility of it hanging over the plate is too much. Of course unless you have a breaking pitch that is almost untouchable or so good you can throw it to both righty and lefty effectively.

Edited by Gunden, 04 January 2018 - 05:56 AM.

[pepbut]

I don't think it really matters that much whether the break is towards or away from the batter. At least as long as the break is late and sharp, and the ball is on the edge of the zone, they're going to miss it either way. The main difference from what I've seen is that pitches that break towards the batter are less forgiving if he misses his spot - you're more likely to hit the batter or give up a dong as opposed to just throwing a ball.

 

Related: Someone made a montage of their favourite pitches of 2017, some pretty nasty ones of all types in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOhk2tHUq7c

 

Although interestingly enough, despite his absolutely bonkers 15.57 SO/W, there isn't a single Kenley Jansen on there. It still amazes me how mundane the guy's pitches look when almost no one can even touch them.

Edited by pepbut, 04 January 2018 - 06:22 AM.

[RoKrish]

@gunden:

You're right Mei doesn't throw a circle changeup he throws a two seamed changeup holding the ball with his ring finger and index finger, I think I may have mentioned it a few posts back. I can't believe I forgot that, thanks for pointing it out. 

 

Yeah I just chose Sawamura and Sanada as they are similar pitchers in the sense they have the same sort of pitches (Cutters and Shuutos) but are differently handed. I choose the shuuto to compare as Sawamura's Cutter is just so over the top, that, to be quite honest, the only pitch that can be compared to it in terms of movement in Amahisa's Slider. You are quite right though, both sawamura and Sanada, generally speaking, throw their cutters to opposite handed batters and their shuutos to same handed batters. However the big difference is that sawamura will throw not only his Cutter, which is one of the best pitches in-universe, but also his shuuto to both same and opposite handed hitters. He did this against Naruta with his two seamer, and he has often used his cutter, even before he made it the cutter kai, against lefties, using it sort of like a slider almost (generally when he throws it vs lefties he has it breaks from in the zone to out of the zone) to strike out batters.

 

@pepbut:

Yeah I saw this video yesterday on reddit, Yu darvish has stupid stuff when he's on as shown by the total number of times he's in the video, but when he's not on, he completely collapses. Thanks for sharing it.

You talked about how pitching towards the batters hands is risky as you run the risk of a dinger or a HBP. You are not wrong, as a pitch on the inside half of the plate is easier to pull and swing for the fences, and going too far inside is how you hit players. The bigger question is risk vs reward, as a properly executed pitch to the inside is enough to completely fool the batter, especially since they have to swing at an inside pitch as the Ump is more likely to call a pitch on the inside part of a plate a strike, while a pitch on the outside can get the benefit of the doubt if a batter doesn't swing. And speaking quite generally, pitches that "run onto the hands" are pretty much impossible (though not necessarily so) to hit with power which generally speaking drops SLG and OBP if the pitcher is pitching moving fastballs (sinkers, cutters, Shuutos) as these pitches turn into ground balls. I mean technically speaking you can do it, David Ortiz was known for tormenting Mariano Rivera with his ability to do so for a few years (including that HR against him in the ALCS back in '04) until Rivera found a small area in Ortiz's swing zone where he couldn't pull the ball as easily, so he just pounded that area every at bat. Or as Tony Gwynn Jr. did to Greg Maddux, if you look at the stats in head to head Maddux who was famous for making quality pitches to the inside of the plate struggled against Gwynn who had a slash of .425/.476/.521 with 0 strike outs in over a hundred plate appearances against him which is a testament to Gwynn's ability as a hitter since Maddux is in the GOAT discussion. Or you can look at Chris Sale or Randy Johnson whom had sliders that turned into a Right handed batters body, and are phenomenal Strike out pitchers (Johnson who Terajima based Conrad on is #2 on the All time Strike out leaders list and Sale had 300 K's this past season) and while Sale has been known to hit players with his slider, Johnson didn't really have a reputation for doing so. 

This however is what top professionals can do with an inside pitch, they have been throwing pitches since they were 11 years old in Little League Baseball, what normally happens is what happened to Sawamura in the last summer tournament, they bean a guy. This is why Chris (quite sensibly I might add) wanted Sawamura to learn the outside low fastball first, as statistically speaking its the hardest place to hit a fastball, and for a pitcher whom is still working on his control, a relatively easy place to hit on the zone because, as you say worst case its a ball, best case its a strike. Sawamura's proclivity to pitch in and his, quite frankly, stupid rates of not beaning guys with his dangerously poor control last summer were to Teitou's Coach (one of the most impressive coaches in the series) a sign of his talent (he said something like he's the guy who pitched to the inside versus Inajitsu like a boss or a pro or something like that). Personally I agree both you and Chris that young pitchers should focus on pitching to the outside as that is the easiest place to rack up the count, though as many top quality pitchers have said that the best pitch in a 2 strike count is a fastball up and in to establish the inside half of the plate. Herein lies my problem with the way that sawamura in particular was made to pitch inside. Terajima makes it out that this aggression is a good thing, but its not necessarily a great idea. See almost every batter in Terajima world is an idiot. Miyuki, who was the one to make Sawamura pitch to the inside so much, is somehow even more stupid when it comes to calling Sawamura's game. See here's the thing, a pitch on the incourse can be hit pretty easily if you can tell its coming, so unless you are literally the greatest relief pitcher of all time (Rivera and even he didn't do it all of the time) most pitchers don't do this. The way you do this is to essentially do what Asou was trying to do against Sanada, back up and give him the outside half of the plate and focus only on hitting the inside pitch. This by the way is why I actually, kind of, like Asou not only is he pretty great defensively, he uses his head at the plate. A pitcher like Sanada is going to get murdered if the center of bat can easily reach the balls path especially since he essentially throws only one pitch to righties, his shuuto. If the inside edge of the plate appears to be the middle to the hitter, he can clobber the ball just as if the ball was right over the middle of the plate. In universe, only four players have been shown to hit using their heads against pitchers, Asou, Haruichi, masuko and Tetsu. Everyone else basically is an idiot when it comes to using their head at the plate. So unless you have great talent like Miyuki, Jun, and Raichi, every other hitter is going to suck against the inside pitch as a result. Sawamura (pre-yips arc) and Sanada throwing in-course over and over again would get exposed over and over again if any hitter used their brain for like a tenth of a second. Instead they act like "Well I just got jammed the last time I went up against this guy as the ball ran into my hands. I guess I'll just stand normally and let him do it to me again! Its not like this is a problem that takes literally 1 second to fix if I thought about it!" proceeds to ground out and walks back to the dugout thinking "Well that didn't work it must be because I didn't want it enough. Certainly not because I didn't realize the problem and try to fix it in an easy way that would require literally just stepping back a bit and doing the same thing. I guess I'll do the same thing again next at bat, but this time I'll want it more! I'm a baseball Genius!" Jeez, its not hard to see why Miyuki is called a Genius, because in a land of Blind Men, the One Eyed Man is King. Just being able to realize that these guys won't even try to increase their odds of not grounding out, makes you able to do so much with the inside half, that it would make you look like a genius for simply calling for it and it working. When every hitter isn't trying to win the game for his team because they keep swinging for the fences at pitches that are supposed to be hard to hit for power and this results in them grounding out every time, its not that hard to call a lead for them. Basically its anything that looks hittable and then turns into something thats not. Let the, to use Wakabayashi Gou's terminology, "Baseball Gorillas" get themselves out. If I were a groundball pitcher in this universe I would laugh at this while leading my team to the Koshien, because as long as I have a competent hitting corps and the fielders are not garbage, I'd be winning everything since other hitters don't even try to hit using their heads.

[Gunden]

@RoKrish Ahh ok so that’s what you were saying. I didn’t notice Sawamura throwing his 2 seamer much as it doesn’t seem to be the best pitch from his numbers, if I remember a quote from Miyuki saying something along the lines of it not being very impressive or as useful as his other numbers, hinting that the break maybe not that good, but I may be wrong and didn’t remember correctly. It doesn’t hurt having a unique break like the 2 seamer to have anyway just for more variety, even if it’s not one of his priority numbers. Maybe it’s one of the already stabilized numbers so he uses it a lot like when he has to rely on his fastballs only like in the Naruta game. I’m sure in his numbers somewhere he has at least one type of pitch that breaks towards a left handed batter, or at least breaks 50/50; vertically and horizontally, torwards a lefty. Otherwise 11 numbers seems kind of redundant to have if the majority break towards the right handed batter.

And thanks for that information it was a good read.

[kokucho]

They saw Mei's pitches, they said 'Nasty' and felt Mei is awesome.

What if they see Eijun's pitches?
I bet, they get awestruck like Eijun did and then they decided to come to Japan to play baseball with him.

lol

[RoKrish]

@gunden:

Yeah I was just a bit annoyed with how these kids are taught how to play baseball. I mean, for comparison, in Big Windup, Nishiura doesn't have access to the huge levels of funds that Seidou, or any of the private schools seem to have, yet they still managed to accomplish big things. Heck even in DnA the only two teams with competent batting strategies are Akikawa (thanks DnA Strategical GOAT Shunshin) and Yakushi. Everyone else seems to want to swing at everything. Yakushi may be free swinging, but they (a.) have a legit strategy and look to  attack pitchers and find their weak points and (b.) actually have the talent to back up that strategy. 

 

As for the two seamer, that quote was back in Act I when Sawamura was first experimenting with it. It didn't really break all that much which sort of made the two seamer useless. In addition the break was mostly vertical more like a sinker than a shuuto. However by the start of Act 2 the two seamer has evolved considerably, and has more of a shuuto break, and more importantly moves like crazy. He actually uses it like a righties slider, and he toyed with Naruta's batters for 7 innings with it. Quite frankly its pretty filthy right now, it could be improved upon, but used in conjuction with his Cutter, there's really no hope for the batter in picking it up.

 

As for other pitches, other than Changeups and the Shuuto two seamer, there's really only one pitch that breaks armside, the screwball. I actually don't want him to throw this breaking pitch despite it being the Finesse pitchers best friend going way back to Christy Mathewson. This because the screwball is (a.) notorious for wreaking the arms of pitchers whom use it a lot (mathewson was one of the best pitchers in baseball until he turned 33 and then arm fatigue, World War I, and Tuberculosis ruined the rest of his career and stopped him from joining the 3000k club) and (b.) Sawamura throws from a high three quarters arms slot, and the screwball is most effective from a low three quarters, sidearm, or submarine delivery.

 

@Kokucho:

Its actually way more likely that they see him pitching in the next tokyo Senbatsu, and word gets out that he's a monster pitcher, and he gets marked for being picked up by an MLB Team. That would be really cool and sort of juxtapose the MLB with the NPB in an interesting way, since it seems that the US coach appreciates Shunshin and thought that he was one of the best pitchers in Japan, despite not having all that great "Stuff" on his pitches. It would be something like in Japan he's treated as some scrub because he lacks velocity, but in the US he's seen by scouts as a top prospect for drafting directly or from the NPB via posting as he has great control breaking pitches and stamina. Its actually how Masahiro Tanaka came to prominence in the West. He played for Team Japan in the U.S.-Japan High School Baseball Tournament (alongside the player Mei's based on Yuki Saito actually) and did well, which brought him to the attention of MLB teams. The other option is that there is a U18 World Cup and Sawamura goes full Darvish with Hongou acting as a Ohtani clone, and pitch for Japan vs a US team head lined by a Clayton Kershaw clone and a Buster Posey clone (oh you all think Miyuki is a genius? wait till you see a dude who legit called a perfect game without ever getting shaken off by the pitcher), maybe even a Cuba team of a Yasiel Puig clone and a Aldoris Chapman clone, just so that the people in universe can shut up about Furuya's fastball (oh you think 150+ kph is fast wait till you see 160+ kph). That would be a fun international tournament, remind me why Terajima decided to have a nothing game for miyuki to play in? If he gave us a legit international baseball tournament, we could see some awesome stuff happening, but instead we get to see Mei and Miyuki playing together as his own personal wish fulfillment. I mean it could be worse, Terajima could have not chosen Shunshin for the tokyo team. 

Edited by RoKrish, 05 January 2018 - 05:47 AM.

[Gunden]

Yeah Sawamura did use the palmball moving fastball a lot after adding it to his arsenal during the fall tournament, it’s still not a bad pitch. one of the batter said it’s slower than his 4 seamer so it makes them want to swing at it. It’s useful for kind of an offspeed pitch as well as getting jammed, especially when his days of his numbers are destabilized, or if it’s a weaker team or batter you can spam them just like how he used to pitch.

Edited by Gunden, 05 January 2018 - 07:29 AM.

[RoKrish]

@Gunden:

Yeah it was that comment in the ouya game that made me make that long post a few days back about it being a power changeup and the zero seamer. The zero seamer is 100 percent conjecture, but with some excellent circumstantial evidence to support it. However, the power changeup thing is 100% as well researched as possible. I would prefer him to use it as a get ahead in the count pitch or if he needs to generate some soft contact but I wouldn't spam it against even lower level teams.