Inashiro’s down and now Seidou has Ugumori in the third round.
What They Say:
“Fissure”
I want to pitch to that mitt again… A meeting with catcher Kazuya Miyuki changed the 15-year-old Eijun Sawamura’s life. He said goodbye to all his friends and knocked upon the door of Seidou, a prestigious baseball school, intent on testing his own strength. There, he met many proud baseball players who were betting everything on the sport! A classic tale, yet new and fresh. All the emotion and excitement of the popular baseball manga is at last coming to television in the form of an anime!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Ugumori is strong. There’s of course not nearly as much data given to us, the viewer, as there is about Seidou, but they’re strong. The winners from West and East Tokyo are down (Inashiro by Ugumori and Teito by Seidou) and now two dark horses are facing off against each other in the third round. At least from what I can tell, Ugumori is Yakushi-light with no one nearly as good as Raichi, but who is.
Ugumori is a team that gets on base and steals bases extremely efficiently. As I now know from Moneyball, on-base percentage is the stat that is most closely related to winning games. And it looks like Ugumori’s OBP is high. They’re aggressive too. They don’t really bunt (just like Yakushi) and they steal (reminds me of a…royal…team from last year). Narumiya at his best could have taken down this team fairly easily. He’s the best pitcher in the series we’ve seen thus far and he has command of a ridiculous arsenal of pitches. His insistence to stick with the fastball, and his inherent distrust of his catcher, was his undoing. It was alluded to with Miyuki’s own commentary, but it sounds like Harada is the one that kept Narumiya in line. With no one, at least on the field, that can do that now, Inashiro is going to get a lot worse.
Seidou, on the other hand, has become more and more cohesive. They’ve had to after the loss of their power hitters. Even the loss of Tanba is huge because now, even though Furuya is the staff ace, there is no “true ace” on the team like Tanba used to be. In truth, both Furuya and Sawamura have a strong case for being the ace.
It’s Miyuki, the captain, that’s sort of throwing a wrench in the team. He told Watanabe to quit the team if he didn’t have the motivation and Maezono got pissed. But really, that’s just a difference in the ways that either would be the captain. Miyuki prefers a straightforward approach, obviously. He isn’t going to sugar coat anything and, most importantly, he’s going to let the player choose for himself. If Watanabe did end up quitting the team, regretting it, and joining back, Miyuki would welcome him with open arms as if nothing happened. Maezono would likely encourage him to stay and tell him what an asset he is. But when it comes down to it, Miyuki’s right. They came here to play baseball.
In Summary:
I think this’ll be an exciting game. It’s two teams, who are fairly evenly matched, coming off upset wins on either side. As always, it’s going to come down to pitching. Furuya’s had a day off, so his arm should be rested. Umemiya pitched nine yesterday against Inashiro, so he’s going to be the big question mark in the game. It’s why I like Seidou’s rotation so much. All three (four if you count Tojo) pitchers on staff have the ability to be starters and, more importantly, come in for relief if need be. Even ace pitchers have off days.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: PS3, LG 47LB5800 47” 1080p LED TV, LG NB3530A Sound Bar
