Chapter 44: Between Geniuses

"FOUL!"

On the stand of Koshien, tens of thousands of spectators were stunned by this amazing swing!

"It's amazing!"

"Brilliant!"

"As expected of a Monster Slugger, Sano Shuzo!"

"To be honest, it's the first time I've seen the Maou Sawamura hit the ball so fast."

The audience talked a lot, and an indescribable excitement stirred.

It turns out that the Maou Sawamura Eijun is not invincible.

Contrary to these spectators who were just observing, Sano Shuzo in the strike zone didn't look good.

'The ball just came outside the edge of the strike zone and slid into the inside corner!'

What does this mean?

This shows that Akutsu's prediction was wrong before. The opponent's Pitch to the inside corner was true, but they didn't throw a Strike to the inside corner. They started with a Ball to the inside corner.

He glanced at Chris in the catcher position in shock.

In the position of the catcher, the expression on Chris' face did not change at all.

He just gave Sawamura the sign to throw the second ball very casually!

The second ball, a Change-up to the outside corner!

After the Change-up was thrown, it flew to the outside corner. Now that he is throwing it to the outside corner, if Sano does not swing, it will be 80% a Ball.

Ping!

But for the Change-up ball that slowly entered his hand, Sano had no way to convince himself to let the ball go.

So of course he swung the bat!

Not surprisingly, the ball was knocked out of bounds again. It's just that, unlike the position of the first ball, this ball fell out of bounds on the sideline of first base.

"FOUL!"

Sano Shuzo touched Sawamura's pitch once again and he hit it far, causing the fans in the audience to cheer in support of Seihou High School.

The pitching of the Maou Sawamura Eijun was hit continuously.

Although it did not land on the field, but the audience was still very excited.

There is a batter how could press Sawamura Eijun to play like this?

Contrary to the excited audience, a big drop of cold sweat fell on Sano Shuzo's forehead on the strike zone.

'This is bad!'

'This is really bad!!'

Although he touched both of Sawamura's Pitches, but this did not make Sano Shuzo let down his guard at all, and his mood was terribly anxious.

Faintly, he had a very bad feeling, as if he was being led by the nose.

And without warning, Sawamura Eijun's third pitch came.

Whoosh!

The white ball is flying straight to the inner corner, and the speed is extremely sharp.

Sano Shuzo was out of his deliberations and anxiousness. His eyes were fixed on the flying baseball, readily counting the Timing of his swing so that he could hit the ball.

SNAP!

Before he could swing, the white ball slammed into Chris's open Mitt.

"STRIKE! BATTER OUT!!!"

The super Monster Slugger Sano Shuzo faced off against the Maou Sawamura Eijun for the first time, and he was Struck Out before he could swing his bat!

He was Struck Out Looking!!

At this moment, those spectators who originally supported Sano Shuzo and Seihou High School suddenly lost their voices.

Even the Commentator on the scene was stunned.

The head-to-head confrontation between the super Monster Slugger Sano Shuzo and the Demon King Sawamura Eijun was originally one of the most attractive parts of this game.

The confrontation between the two directly attracted tens of thousands of fans in the audience.

In this duel, Sano Shuzo had an absolute advantage.

He hit Sawamura's pitching twice consecutively. Although the ball did not fall into bounds, the speed, strength, and sharpness of the swing were seen.

It felt like Sano Shuzo was one level higher than Sawamura!

After all, this is the first duel between the two. In the first duel, Sano Shuzo accurately grasped the timing of Sawamura's pitching and hit the ball Out.

It feels obvious that Sano is better, hitting Sawamura Eijun's ball a home run and getting the 70th in his high school baseball career is just a matter of time.

Just when the vast majority of the audience at the scene thought so, a change suddenly occurred. In the third ball, Sawamura Eijun used his Sword, the Straight Fastball!

In the face of this extremely sharp sword, Sano Shuzo didn't even have time to swing his bat and Was Struck Out Looking.

Just when they thought that Sawamura Eijun was no longer good enough and was about to be slammed by Sano Shuzo, Sawamura shut them all up!

"Demon King!"

"Demon King!"

Members of the Brotherhood of Red Heart and the Demon King's Guards would not miss such a good opportunity.

After Sawamura Eijun struck Out Sano Shuzo, they immediately roared like fanatics.

It felt like announcing that they were the masters of the field.

The Demon King Sawamura is back!

So what if the opponent is the No. 1 Batter in High School?

The Maou still struck him Out!

On the Press Box, Owada Akiko frowned and looked at Shuzo Sano, who was stunned on the field.

"How come he couldn't even swing the bat in time?"

"It's not too late, it's a miscalculation! Or to put it more accurately, Seidou's battery have led him around by the nose!" Fujio said.

This duel looks thrilling on the surface, like a head-to-head contest between pitchers and batters.

But the real situation is not the case. The two sides of the real contest in this game are Chris and Akutsu who is now on second base.

Akutsu figured Out which way Sawamura's first Pitch would go.

And Chris looked through Sano and his small movements on the strike zone also saw through his intention that he was aiming for an inside corner ball.

After realizing that Sano was aiming for an inside corner ball, Chris did not hesitate to give Sawamura a Ball to the inside corner and deliberately let Sano hit the ball out of bounds.

The mistake this time directly laid the result of Sano's strikeout.

"What happened?"

When he returned to the rest area of ​​Seihou High School, Shuzo Sano was still a little confused, so he asked Akutsu Watari angrily.

"There's nothing you can do about it. Sano, your acting skills are really bad. The opponent obviously saw through your intentions and knew that you were aiming for an inside corner ball."

"Impossible!"

Sano Shuzo didn't even think about the answer that Akutsu gave him, and directly rejected it!

He is in a normal position, how could he be seen through?

"The opponent's catcher may have an amazing Cold Reading Talent. With it he must have found out that you aimed at the inside corner ball, otherwise, his first ball would not have been the inside corner Ball." Akutsu said calmly.

After he finished speaking, he looked thoughtfully at the rest area of ​​Seidou High School.

Chris's game-calling was amazing, but what surprised him more was Sawamura's ball control and pitching.

He can actually control the ball precisely at the boundary of the strike zone in the inside corner, and use the course of Cutter to make the ball deviate from the strike zone.

What a horrible guy!

'The Maou Sawamura Eijun's pitching has probably already reached the peak High School level. I'm afraid it will be difficult to win points from him in this game…'

'There must be a way to do it.'

…

T/N: Cold Reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists and psychics. A practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language without prior knowledge.

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