If you saw that little exchange in the comments last week (I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that spoiler, ROFL), I opined that I would rather not see Souichirou pitch in this match.  First of all because I wanted to see Natsuno pitch – and indeed, with his little “Ichiban!” cry before every delivery he might have been the most entertaining part of the game.  Also, because to me this is reaching for easy and false drama.  Touma is going to be the ace, we know that.  Much more interesting to see Sou try and best him as he is now and will be, the catcher – and to see Ichiban try and raise his game under his tutelage.

So, given that, it was probably inevitable that the easy way out would get taken – Adachi is human after all.  The first inning was great anyway.  We got to see Ichiban pitch angry, and he has every right to be – his manager pretty much treats him like crap.  The little fella has a lot of potential, that’s clear, and he showed it in that first inning.  Pitchers do jam their fingers trying to make bare-hand plays sometimes – which is why managers hammer it into their heads not to do it, though that goes out the window when instinct takes over.

Once the injury happened the game followed a pretty predictable course.  We know the score here – Sou is a good pitcher, Tou is better.  The most interesting part was watching Touma try and dominate the game with a catcher who only let him operate at about half-strength.  We keep being told how Touma is airheaded and lazy and needs to be guided, but it seems to me that he’s showed a pretty elite baseball brain just about every time a situation has required it.  It’s not like this is an official match or anything – and ramen is about $6 most places, not enough to bother even a high schooler that much.

Track 2 does get a little workout here too, though there’s no sign of Harada this time.  We met Senbongi-sensei (Mizushima Yuu) a few weeks back, acting as a sub for the brass band club (he’s doing so for the art club now).  He’s another link to the past, as it turns out – not the past we know first-hand, but the one we’ve been told about.  He turns up at Sawai-san’s grave and introduces himself to Mayumi as a friend of Sawai-san’s.  In fact he was the guy who accidentally injured Sawai in the infamous collision at first base (the specter of which appears in the scrimmage), though whether that’s why he’s at Meisei now is not yet clear.

On the field, Team Haruka does manage to scratch across a run against Touma, but he’s starting to figure out a system that works.  First he starts mixing in change-ups to make his two-cylinder fastball seem faster.  Then he figures out that he can just throw two screamers for the first two strikes because who cares if they’re passed balls, and then get the third with his offspeed stuff.  It may or may not have been part of Ooyama’s plan, but figuring out how to win without his best pitch and his regular catcher certainly isn’t going to do Touma’s development as a pitcher any harm.

At that point it’s only a matter of waiting for Souichirou to tire, which he inevitably will given that he hasn’t pitched competitively in years.  Truthfully he shouldn’t have been allowed to pitch tired in a practice game – that’s when a lot of arm injuries happen – but he does end up giving up the lead.  And Touma’s final strikeout of his brother – while only the 26th out – was the game’s real climax.  It was a definitive statement from Touma that this is his team, and he’s the one who’s going to carry them on his back as far as they’re going to go.