Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 505 - 103: Proactive Adjustment
Even though it’s been almost a week since the game, the impact of Lin Guanglai’s "complete home run" match is still ongoing:
After the game ended, the Nippon Professional Baseball organization even opened a special feature, conducting exclusive interviews with Lin Guanglai himself, as well as many legendary hitters and retired stars of the Nippon Professional Baseball, to serve the purpose of promotion. From the current data, it seems this move by the Nippon Professional Baseball was indeed brilliant. The related videos on YouTube have fairly high view counts, with many surpassing tens of thousands or even millions of views.
Most importantly, aside from the local fans of Nippon Professional Baseball, a large number of foreigners have also been drawn in; at least from the subsequent games, it’s evident that the Yahoo Dome stands have seen quite a few foreign faces. At 19, Lin Guanglai has officially entered the vision of Major League teams.
However, unlike before, this time, Americans no longer view him as a young player with untapped potential, but have truly begun to treat him as a "star," and the difference here is as vast as the skies and the earth.
There are even quite a few MLB teams already inquiring with Japan’s baseball professionals about whether Lin Guanglai might exercise his posting rights early—after all, based on his current level of performance, even in the MLB, he is absolutely a top-tier super rookie.
Of course, for now, these things are just inklings. At least, Softbank Team has not received any formal invitations for negotiations, and Lin Guanglai is still a member of the Softbank Team.
And for Akiyama Koji, the current manager of the Softbank Team, who is set to retire honorably at the end of the season, the future of Lin Guanglai hardly seems to have a significant relation to him; rather, he is considering another more important issue.
Looking at the members of his coaching staff in front of him, Akiyama Koji coughed twice, and after ensuring everyone’s attention was on him, he slowly began to speak:
"Everyone has seen the recent state of the team... I hope everyone can adjust the rhythm of the daily training; I’ll also increase the rotation in the upcoming games."
After hearing these words, the other coaches exchanged glances and nodded tacitly; but for Kato Shinichi, who only joined the Softbank First Team this year and had no prior experience coaching the first team, his manager’s words left him somewhat puzzled:
Since the start of the new season, the Softbank Team opened with a splendid 10-game winning streak, only losing their first game of the season in the second match against Orix last week due to the previous day’s excitement. Currently, they are boasting a record of 13 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss, leading the Pacific League, laughing proudly over their rivals.
The entire team’s current state can almost be described as "explosive," whether it’s the pitchers’ pitching content or the batters’ hitting quality, both fundamentally topping the Pacific League; many players from the Softbank Team are on various statistical leaderboards—one could say that even during the last time the Softbank Team won the league and Japan’s Number One in 2011, the team’s state was never as outstanding as it is now.
Yet in today’s meeting, Akiyama Koji, who is responsible for steering this Galaxy Battleship of Softbank, surprisingly suggested making adjustments to the team’s state in the future, which is somewhat bewildering: Adjustments...? Is there really a need for adjustments? Isn’t proactive adjustments something only teams with poor results should be concerned with?
"Manager, I have a question..." 48-year-old Kato Shinichi, a young force in the coaching team, slowly raised his right hand and asked, "With the team in such a state, do we really need any adjustments?"
His voice noticeably wavered, clearly showing a bit of insecurity in himself.
Upon hearing this question, Akiyama Koji looked up in the direction of the voice; after confirming the identity of the person, he patted his head, "Ah, look at me, I forgot we had a newcomer in the coaching staff this year, that’s my mistake."
As he took the responsibility onto himself, he gestured to Kato Shinichi to relax; after a moment, Akiyama Koji didn’t directly answer the question but instead replied, "Kato, as the pitching coach of the team, how do you feel about the current state of the team?"
"It’s certainly very good, even extraordinarily good," Kato Shinichi replied without hesitation, "Since spring training, the state of all pitchers has been steadily improving, not to mention Lin and Settsu, who have been fairly stable. Even for the current starting pitchers in the team, there are quite a few competing for the third starter position; in the bullpen, thanks to the guidance of veteran players, the younger players have also been growing rapidly—it’s safe to say, out of my many years of experience, I’ve never seen a better team than this!"
Hearing Kato Shinichi’s unreserved words of praise, Akiyama Koji nodded.
But then, he pointed to the densely packed schedule on the tactical board behind him and slowly began to speak, "You’re right, but it’s precisely this state that worries me the most—we’ve climbed too fast, reached the peak too early, and the road ahead is still too long, too steep." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
Kato Shinichi was taken aback, and Akiyama Koji began to explain his decision with a calm and detailed manner.
