Summary

The chapter opens with Kuramochi making it back home. Seidou finally scores another run at the bottom of the 5th inning. From the bullpen, Sawamura cheers on Haruichi, calling him “Haru-sama, Seidou’s black summer angel”!

Kanemaru comments that Haruichi sure makes it look easy every time he makes a hit. Toujou replies that it was expected, as they both know he stays back to practice after they leave. Remembering what Haruichi said about wanting to be a mean batter that no one would want to face in a tight moment, Kuramochi comments to himself that the Kominato brothers sure isn’t all talk only.

The audience adds that now that Kuramochi gets on the base more often, it really makes Kominato’s batting work its best. This 1st & 2nd batter combo make prove to be a huge threat to other schools.

Next up is Shirasu, who manages a RBI hit. Sawamura calls Shirasu “the assassin. Silent Killer”, while Okumura tells Sawamura that if he has no intention to pitch, they should go back to the dugout. The audience comments that Seidou seems to be able to surpass Hachiya’s defense shift now. After all, this is the third time seeing Natsume-kun’s pitches.

Next up is Miyuki, who looks dead serious as he stands in the batter box. The audience comments that by now, Seidou’s batters are used to seeing Natsume’s pitches so this is when the batter lineup is going to get even scarier. Natsume seems overwhelmed as he recalls Miyuki’s last hit that Kawabata had caught and eventually ends up throwing four balls, walking Miyuki. Sawamura shouts that that’s Miyuki’s wordless intimidating pressure. After all, it’s scary when an ever-smiling person suddenly looks like he has lost it. Okumura gives up and heads back to the dugout.

Maezono is up next. He tells himself that he does not need a big hit. Either over the shortstop’s head, or over the second baseman - he just to has to hold until he can hit it straight on - which he does. He ends up hitting a home run, scoring 3 RBI, making it the 5 runs in this inning alone, widening the score to 0-6!

Kawabata, watching this, laughs to himself thinking that if they would make it to the nationals, it must be full of strong teams like Seidou. Furuya is up next, but through sheer preseverance, Kawabata manages to get him out.

The chapter ends with Kawabata completely hyped to make it all the way to Koshien.

Originally serialized in Shuukan Shounen Magazine Issue #24, 2019.
All images are copyrighted by Terajima Yuuji / Kodansha.

Scoreboard

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
八弥王子 0 0 0 0 0 0
青道 0 0 1 0 5 6

Thoughts

Wow, Seidou totally dominated this inning, and about time too. That’s all I can say. Furuya makes it the second out, so there is still the opportunity for Toujou, Masashi and Kanemaru to deal further damage to Hachiya before the inning ends.

At this point, Kawabata is totally hyped to make it to Koshien so Hachiya still has a chance to make their comeback. The problem is the rest of his team though. Kawabata seems to be the only one who isn’t overwhelmed by Seidou and Furuya’s pitching. Let’s hope he’ll be able to motivate his teammates to fight back. Perhaps it’s also time to switch out Natsume-kun because he looks exhausted at this stage.

The other theory would be that Furuya will start to become unstabilized now that he has pitched five innings. Stamina (particularly in the summer) used to be his issue, so we’ll have to see what happens from here on.

And Sawamura, would you please focus on your pitching warm up?