What They Say:
After learning the truth about Chris, Sawamura follows him around to get him to teach Sawamura baseball. Chris finally gives in to Sawamura’s persistence and decides catch his pitches. The pitch Sawamura decides to throw is the fastest pitch he can. But in response, Chris asks, “What is your specialty?” Sawamura can’t throw breaking balls or amazing fastballs. What kind of pitch should he throw? He asks around his teammates for help, and he arrives at an answer.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Eijun’s turned around since he learned that Chris had that injury. There’s a few minute montage of Eijun basically being creepy following Chris around and it’s played for laughs. There’s one point when he asks if he needs more toilet paper as Chris sits on the pot. The thing’s ridiculous, but it’s a nice break from all the serious baseball we had going on thus far. When Eijun says he wants a third scroll, Chris says to rest. He’s got to rest his body as much as he’s got to learn how it moves to be a true ace, and Eijun’s got neither right now.
And he’s learning. Eijun knows that he’s got to learn about the game instead of just blindly training until he drops. He’s reading books and he’s watching games. He knows his shortcomings and he’s going to overcome them.
Chris returns from a rehab session and has a talk with Kazuya. Kazuya tells him that Eijun’s the kind of pitcher that it’s the catcher wants to catch for. It’s the catcher’s job to nurture the pitcher to be the ace. That literally puts the spark back in Chris’s eye and, the next day, he’s out there training with Eijun. And right when there’s two spots open for the first string roster, Eijun’s finally got the training he needs.
Thanks to that training, though, Eijun’s lost a bit of his touch. He’s thinking too hard about pitching and he’s not just pitching. But Chris keeps asking one question: What does Eijun have that the others don’t? The answer, as Chris says, is nothing yet. But if Eijun keeps working, if he keeps building that foundation, then he’ll pull ahead of the pack.
Furuya experience just as big a loss as Eijun did in the episode. He hurts his finger, gets banned from pitching for two weeks, and will run with the second string while his finger heals.
In Summary:
Episodes like this often feel like a lot less has going on, but I’m assuming that Chris’s injury will actually move things forward nicely. At the seventh episode, that was a nice place to put the reveal and it’s really pushed Eijun and Chris harder than either has worked thus far. There are two spots for the first string and Eijun’s hurt his chances this time around, but that won’t stop him from getting there eventually. He’s got a lot more to learn and I might actually be angry if he makes it to the first string after just a few episodes.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24 in. Vizio 1080p HDTV, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
