Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Big Windup! in the heat of the action, as our boys attempt to defeat last year’s summer tournament winners in the very first round. As we enter the bottom of the first inning, Nishiura have already proven themselves a sharper team than their opponents expected; Izumi scored a clean base hit to start the team strong, and a sequence of sacrifice plays almost earned them an early run. Sadly, cleanup hitter Tajima was struck cleanly out, leaving our team without an advantage as they face their opponents’ first at-bat.
In pure state-of-play terms, that’s basically everything the last episode covered. But in terms of underlying strategy, the episode proved a feast of subtle back-and-forth, as our batters and the opposing battery felt each other out, probing for weaknesses while attempting to conceal their own. Asa Higuchi’s manga is closely attuned to both the mechanical and psychological conflicts concealed within baseball’s drama, and Tsutomu Mizushima is the perfect choice for articulating such conflicts in motion, having demonstrated through works like Girls und Panzer his mastery of visually conveying tactical drama. Seeing Nishiura in action is like watching a kite we’ve loving crafted first take flight, and I’m eager to see how high they can soar. Let’s get back to the action!
Episode 15
Our new OP proves its worth as an accompaniment to the active tournament, its driving melody and accompanying visuals of the team taking the field creating a sense that the game begins anew with every fresh episode. Also dig this use of the harmonica, another sound that, like those flange-heavy guitar strums, seems to inherently convey a sense of desperate striving and youth. Harmonicas always sound like they are choking, their voices cracking, barely able to emit sound – the very specificity of this noise gives them a clear dramatic role within a musical composition, like the warning wail before disaster
As with the first OP, we get some particularly exceptional character acting for them passing the ball around. The relative stability of most player positions make baseball an easier sport to adapt to animation than many, but it’s still not easy
Right, Tosei has an entire orchestra and cheering gallery here for them. As their cheers lead us back into the episode, we get more shots of the heavily clouded sky, both a literal and metaphorical warning of the storm ahead
First off from Tosei is their third baseman, Mashiba. There’s no point in performing a sacrifice play if there’s no one on base to push forward, so we can assume Mashiba is a strong batter adept at landing base hits. This will accordingly be a tough initial challenge for Mihashi, a glimpse of Tosei’s full strength
Abe notes that Mashiba is a freshman, and that it’s unusual to put a freshman at the top of the order – another clue towards Mashiba’s apparent strength
“There should be no need for me to do recon for the team here.” Unsurprisingly, Mashiba’s skills seem to have made him a little cocky – as a freshman performing at the highest level on an extremely competitive team, he can’t help but look down on a team that has nothing but freshmen. Thus he refuses to consider his at-bat a sacrifice for the team, looking to claim glory rather than measure Mihashi’s talents
Even before the first pitch, Mashiba is thinking “I’ll finish this quickly to keep the other teams from gathering data.” His mind is far from the ball, and it accordingly passes him by. Strike one!
“We haven’t messed with his actual form, so the course of his fastball hasn’t changed.” Abe considers how to best use his powerful but unreliable weapon Mihashi. Attempting to forcefully train him to throw his fastball with the nine-quadrant accuracy of his slower pitches would likely just demoralize him and undercut what is effective about his existing form; Abe is wisely taking a slower approach, just sort of nudging him in the right direction and exploiting whatever proficiencies he’s already mastered
Using his precise, slower form, Mihashi sneaks another one past Mashiba. Strike two
And that precision swiftly gets them their first out, with a low outside pitch. This trick won’t work forever, but it’s good that Mihashi claimed at least one free batter, before the team starts to account for his slow yet precise pitching form
“If we threw Mashiba off his game even a little, that’s a win! After all, the lead-off has the most at-bats in a single game.” Momoe notes how the psychological back-and-forth of pitcher and batter doesn’t actually end after one at-bat; it’s a conversation that continues through each spin of the batting rotation, where getting ahead psychologically in one at-bat can spiral into total dominance of your subsequent rotations. Through the precisely staged duels of its inning structure, baseball facilitates a variety of simultaneous mind games
“Frankly, once Mihashi gets sized up, that’s the end of the game for us!” Yep. His speed can’t compete with the top teams, so all they really have is the element of surprise
Mashiba is swiftly scolded by his coach for playing so flippantly
And Abe’s analogue Kawai attempts to calm his own pitcher Takase’s nerves. “Pitchers are such delicate creatures…”
A high-flying foul turns into a catch for Tajima and our second out. The point is not to prevent hitters from ever connecting with the ball, that’s impossible – the point is to direct their energy towards solvable scenarios, like easy-to-catch pop flies or grounders that the infield can swiftly direct towards first base. The various outcomes of an at-bat are so formalized that you actually count “errors,” the times when someone failed to do their assigned role in defending the field, and don’t count such errors against your pitcher’s record
Tosei’s cheer squad rushes into “Yankee Doodle,” a strange artifact of baseball’s peculiar journey into Japanese culture
Third up is Shingo Shimazaki, who Abe considers the most difficult batter
“The worst possible thing would be for him to just watch us carefully.” Mihashi must remain a mystery
“I thought it was in, but today’s umpire ruled that a ball. I’ll have to remember that.” Even the temperament of specific umpires is a key strategic variable. Weaker players disagree with some element of a game’s construction and declare it “unfair,” claiming they would win on a fairer field – stronger players accept the conditions of a battle whatever they may be, and work to optimize their performance given those conditions. It’s the same for fighting game scrubs or professional athletes
Mihashi throws a hard curve, and Shimazaki wings at it. A foul ball caught by a leap from Hanai, which crucially keeps Mihashi’s overall tool set mysterious
Shimazaki nonetheless scavenges some crucial data from the at-bat: Hanai is a force in right field, so probe for other weaknesses next time. Again, “their right fielder is too strong” is unproductive, “how do I mitigate the strength of their right fielder” is actionable
“You only threw six pitches! How efficient!” In spite of his anxieties, Mihashi actually crushed the first inning
And with the first inning done, the rain begins to fall. A handy incidental device for building tension
“I’m certain I can pitch my best ever today!” Though he initially falls back into old anxieties, glancing over the allies surrounding him fills Mihashi with confidence. For the very first time, he actually convinces himself he can do this, rather than having to be convinced by another
Next up is Hanai, who must juggle Tajima’s advice regarding Takase’s pitches with the fact that he’s simply not as good of a batter as Tajima
A ball passes by, and Hanai is surprised to realize he could actually follow its path
Hanai hits it high to center field, securing a base hit. Nice goofy face from him as Tajima praises his so-so batting
“Best to think of him as a handicap.” Momoe’s calculation of their batting order ruthlessly accepts that Mihashi’s just not going to get a hit. You work with the team you have, not the team you wish you had – another mentality separating genuine competitors from perpetual also-rans
Takase throws a wild ball, and Kawai attempts to calm him down by slowing the at-bat with an attempted pick-off on Hanai. Still, even this attempt to reset his mental state carries a cost, as Momoe immediately recognizes this as a sign of Takase’s nerves
Tajima, ever the optimistic lunatic, essentially engineers a base steal for Hanai by himself, with no coordination from either the dugout or player at-bat. He seems to have read Takase so completely that he can call a steal the moment Takase’s muscles move, knowing by then whether he’s committed to an actual pitch or is feigning towards a pick-off. I suppose that would explain some of Tajima’s batting ace status – even though he’s a small guy, he’s so good at reading pitchers that he can overperform through that alone
And with a fourth ball, we get a second runner on base
Our next runner fears a double play, and thus would rather hit than bunt, not wanting to put the front runners into a position where they’re all trapped and easily tagged out. Having runners on base is obviously good, but it can create situations where double plays are easy due to the “crowding” of the bases
Fuuuck. A clutch grab by second base turns a solid hit into a double play, and we’re suddenly on the backfoot. Hamada immediately understands it’s his turn to take the stage, and leads the cheer squad in a rallying song to avoid a general psychological collapse
Tragically, this also puts us at two outs right as Mihashi is taking the plate. Whatever happens here, the most important thing is that he doesn’t go into pitching the second inning with a bad attitude
We get our greatest flourish of animation all episode for Mihashi flopping his way into first base, apparently devoid of all bones as he tumbles head over heels down the line. Our poor boy
Of course, Abe is furious about basically every reckless aspect of Mihashi’s at-bat. It’s your turn now, Abe!
And then Mihashi leads the base by way too much, immediately getting caught out – but did Hanai rush home in time? TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO-
And Done
Goddamnit, what a dick moment to end the episode! Nonetheless, the action remains frantic as we charge through the second inning, after Mihashi’s first pitches efficiently knocked Tosei out of the first. Compared to Tosei, Nishiura are basically a set of plywood cutouts in the shape of baseball players, but Abe and Momoe are skillfully martialing what abilities they have, banking heavily on both Mihashi’s unknown qualities as a pitcher and their opponents’ apparent lack of focus. It’s basically a race against time to gain a lead before Tosei locks into fighting form, with every advantage all the more precious for how unlikely it is to be repeated. Fight on, Nishiura!
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