Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 655 - 13: Jaw-Dropping Debut (Part 3)

But after watching this round of confrontation, Ortiz, who was quite confident before the game, simply stopped speaking—how could he, having twice won the Hank Aaron Award as the best hitter and with an MLB career total of 541 home runs, not see that Lin Guanglai on the field and Benintendi were completely different levels of players? 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

In Major League Baseball, strength is the fundamental: A powerful pitcher facing a weaker hitter is simply not going to give the opponent a single chance; and Lin Guanglai's pitching ability now has clearly far exceeded the "Top 100 rookie" level of competence.

On the field, Lin Guanglai, having obtained a good ball count, received the ball from Sanchez, appearing quite relaxed; whereas Benintendi in the batter's box seemed somewhat tense, his eyes fixed on Lin Guanglai, not daring to be careless at all.

The second pitch was still a powerful fastball flying toward the high position of Benintendi's strike zone; although the spin of this ball showed a slight decrease from the previous pitch, the speed did not decrease but instead increased to over 100 miles per hour.

Perhaps somewhat bewildered by the first pitch, facing this fastball flying towards the upper part of his strike zone, Benintendi had already forgotten the hitting strategy set before the game, and hastily opted for a forceful swing.

And the outcome that greeted him was, naturally, an anticipated strikeout.

In just the blink of an eye, the situation on the field had reached 0 balls and 2 strikes—the Yankees fans in the stands cheered and applauded more enthusiastically, while the few scattered Red Sox caps were increasingly silent.

If there were commentators or viewers familiar with Nippon Professional Baseball here, they wouldn't even need to watch the upcoming match to know what kind of scene would unfold—

The third ball, the decisive pitch, a split-finger fastball.

This was the first time Benintendi had encountered this pitch as a batter in a formal match—although Coach Farrell had repeatedly emphasized the "noxiousness" of this pitch, due to the lack of firsthand information, the Red Sox players were somewhat dismissive.

But until he actually stood in the batter's box, Andrew Benintendi realized how foolish his previous thoughts had been!

"Strikeout, you're out!!!"

As the American umpire drew his bow and arrow, simultaneously appearing in the camera was the bewildered face of Benintendi, along with Lin Guanglai slightly raising his hand on the pitcher's mound.

And this was merely the beginning of the day.

After swiftly dismissing Benintendi in three pitches, Lin Guanglai continued to demonstrate his formidable dominance against the subsequent Red Sox batters:

Today, Coach Girardi allowed him three innings as a starter, and during these three innings, not only did the Red Sox fail to hit any hits, but they also painfully swallowed 8 strikeouts—yes, starting three innings, facing 9 batters, and achieving 8 strikeouts, this was Lin Guanglai's performance on his first preseason outing.

Undoubtedly, this was a debut sufficient to set MLB ablaze and a performance capable of driving Yankees fans and all baseball-following media into a frenzy.

Following the end of this game, Lin Guanglai evidently became the hot target for journalists, with the media around him always being among the most numerous each time training or matches concluded;

And his New York Yankees also delivered the best spring training record in the team's history during the preseason: 35 preseason games, Yankees seized 24 wins, 9 losses, and 1 tie, a record enough to make them proud across the Major League and increasingly anticipate the team's new season performance, prompting New York media to start widely promoting concepts like "the return of the Evil Empire."

And it was in such an atmosphere that the 2017 season officially arrived.