Episode 20 · Big Windup!

Big Windup!

Ren Mihashi spent middle school as the ace of the baseball team, and they lost anyway. Every game. The other players stopped trying, then started taking it out on him, and he finished those years believing the only reason he ever got the mound was his father running the school. So he picks a high school in another prefecture for one reason: nobody there knows him, and he is done with baseball for good. Then someone at Nishiura High grabs him by the arm and puts a ball back in his hand. He does not want to be the starting pitcher. He shakes, he overthinks every throw, he assumes the new catcher, Takaya Abe, is about to hate him the way the old team did. Abe does not. He watches Mihashi pitch and sees something worth keeping, and he decides on the spot to turn this nervous wreck into a real ace. Practices, arguments, bad throws, small wins. Mihashi slowly figures out he can trust the guy behind the plate, and maybe even himself. But a pitcher who has spent years being told he is worthless does not just shake that off overnight. Can he hold it together long enough to prove the old team wrong?