Chris tapped his glove once.
To be honest, he also wanted to see Sawamura’s pitching with his own eyes.
“Be careful, Chris-senpai,” Sawamura said as he stepped onto the mound.
His first pitch was a moving fastball—straight down the middle.
Pop.
The sound of the ball hitting the glove echoed cleanly through the indoor facility.
Sawamura’s eyes lit up instantly.
As expected of Chris-senpai.
Chris, however, looked down at his glove in slight surprise.
The ball wasn’t perfectly centered.
He glanced at Sawamura again, his expression shifting subtly.
He had heard the rumors within the team—that Sawamura’s delivery made it extremely difficult to pick up the release point, making timing nearly impossible.
But seeing it firsthand was entirely different.
The ball didn’t just look deceptive—it actually shifted slightly in its final approach.
Next, Chris began setting targets in different corners of the strike zone.
Sawamura responded without hesitation, hitting each location precisely.
Chris nodded slowly.
Good control.
Clear distinction between inside and outside.
Then, his gaze shifted toward the entrance of the facility.
Several figures stood there.
Chris was about to rise to greet them, but one of them subtly signaled him to continue.
So he stayed silent—and continued the practice.
Calmly, he set the same corner targets again.
Sawamura still hit them cleanly.
Then Chris asked him to throw the same four-seam fastball he had used in the Red and White match, repeating the same locations.
“Nice pitch,” Chris praised.
It seemed the coach and the others had come to observe Sawamura’s condition.
At the entrance, Coach Kataoka and Takashima Rei both nodded slightly.
Not bad.
His condition was excellent.
The only thing left was to test him in an actual game.
Chris was just about to stand and acknowledge the group when—
“Chris-senpai.
I have other pitches you haven’t caught yet.”
Chris paused.
“What did you say, Sawamura?”
“Hehe,” Sawamura grinned.
“Even Miyuki-senpai doesn’t know about these three pitches yet.
You’re the second person to see them, senpai.”
A ripple of surprise went through everyone present.
Three more pitches?
Even Miyuki, standing near the entrance, narrowed his eyes slightly.
Coach Kataoka remained silent—but gave a faint nod.
Chris exhaled softly, then looked back at Sawamura.
“Is that so?
Then what will you throw next?”
“Heh.
First up—the first one.
Sawamura’s motion was unchanged.
Identical form.
Identical rhythm.
But the moment the ball reached Chris—
It snapped sideways.
A sharp horizontal break toward Chris’s left.
The glove reached out—but missed.
The ball hit the ground behind him.
A brief silence followed.
Then Sawamura grinned.
“That was a cutter, Chris-senpai.”
Chris picked up the ball and tossed it back.
Compared to the earlier moving fastball, this one was clearly more controllable.
The break was intentional, not chaotic.
A pitch designed to miss the sweet spot just enough to break the bat’s timing.
A small shift—but enough to turn contact into an out.
Chris’s expression deepened slightly.
Interesting.
“Chris-senpai, are you ready?
The next pitch is coming.”
Sawamura’s voice carried excitement now—he was eager to show everything.
Chris lowered his glove again, setting it right back in the center.
“I’m ready.”
But this time, the trajectory of the pitch was completely different from the previous cutter.
Instead of breaking sharply to Chris’s left, it moved in the opposite direction—cutting to the right while also dropping slightly downward at the end.
A two-seam fastball.
With this, Sawamura had expanded his pitching arsenal even further.
As a catcher, Chris understood better than anyone how valuable each additional pitch type could be for a pitcher’s growth.
“Very good, Sawamura,” Chris said with a small nod.
“These pitches that break in different directions will greatly enrich your pitching options.”
“Haha, Chris-senpai, there’s still one last pitch—and this one is actually very easy to catch.”
“Oh?” Chris’s interest was immediately piqued.
“Really now?”
The first two pitches had both been horizontal movements.
So what kind of pitch was the final one?
Chris focused, watching closely.
Sawamura grinned and delivered the final pitch.
From Chris’s perspective, it looked like a straight fastball right down the middle.
Not particularly fast either.
But the moment it landed in his glove—
Chris’s expression froze.
For the first time, genuine shock appeared in his eyes.
At the entrance of the training facility, the three observers—who had been silently watching everything unfold—showed the exact same reaction.
They had already been surprised by the cutter and the two-seam.
But this was different.
Those earlier pitches, no matter how deceptive, still had visible movement and relied on speed variation.
With enough adjustment, strong batters could eventually adapt.
A changeup.
The most dangerous type of off-speed pitch.
Because the release motion was identical to a fastball, the difference in speed alone was enough to destroy timing completely.
Even elite batters struggled to adjust once they committed.
With this pitch added to his arsenal, Sawamura’s value rose dramatically.
If he could reliably use it in critical moments…
He would instantly become a pitcher with national-level potential.
While Sawamura was still enjoying Chris’s stunned expression, someone suddenly grabbed him by the collar.
“Sawamura, you bastard… why didn’t you say you had a pitch like this earlier?”
Miyuki’s face was unusually serious—his eyes burning with excitement.
“Hey!
You didn’t ask!” Sawamura protested.
“Besides, I thought you already—”
Before he could finish, he froze.
Behind Miyuki stood Coach Kataoka and Takashima Rei.
Takashima Rei already had her hand raised—clearly ready to strike.
“Sawamura…” she said sharply.
“As a pitcher, why didn’t you report this kind of breaking ball to the coach or Miyuki?”
Her tone carried genuine anger.
Seidou’s baseball club had hundreds of members.
Talent was something that had to be shown clearly and early—only then would opportunities be given.
If Sawamura had been anyone else, she might have already taught him a lesson with a well-placed strike from her grandfather’s teachings.
And honestly, everyone present shared the same question.
Why hide something like this?
Sawamura scratched his head under the pressure of all their gazes and finally answered hesitantly.
“I thought… the pitches I had were already enough to deal with the seniors in games.
There wasn’t really a need to show everything.
And after that, I was busy training… plus, no one asked me.”
That answer left everyone speechless.
Because in their impression, Sawamura was the type who couldn’t hide anything at all.
That was exactly why, after the Red-White game, they had all assumed his ability had already been fully exposed.
Coach Kataoka watched him quietly for a moment.
Then, surprisingly, his expression softened slightly.
“It seems… this year, Seidou’s luck is finally turning.”
He turned serious again.
“Sawamura.
From this point on, you are not allowed to use that changeup in official matches before the Summer Tournament.
And you are not to practice it in front of outsiders.
Understood?”
“Yes!” Sawamura answered immediately.
“Miyuki.
You’ll be in charge of supervising him.”
“Understood, Coach,” Miyuki replied.
It was clear—the changeup had been designated as Seidou’s secret weapon.
Afterward, Coach Kataoka, Chris, and Miyuki continued discussing further details.
As for Sawamura—
He was dragged off by Takashima Rei for a full lecture.
In short: high school baseball was ruthless.
You couldn’t afford to “play dumb” for too long—because if you did, you might eventually become the very fool you were pretending to be.