What’s up with the rubber ball? And rubber ball league in HS. Do all of the HS’s in Japan use that?
Watching that thing bounce it’s really hard to believe that no one could score in the first 49 innings. The ball appears to bounce high off of the dirt, but the outfielders don’t play that deep, either the hitters are terrible, the bats are way beyond BBCOR, or the pitching and defense is fantastic. One must really have to square up on that ball to get any good result.
A couple of things that caught my eye was between innings the 1B rolled on to the RF and he fired it to 1B and I don’t think I have ever seen two middle infielders play as drawn in as these guys. Must be no fear of a hard shot with that ball.
I would like to see the season stats for these guys, maybe a batting average of .125 leads the league?
Both pitchers were pretty efficient, 700 plus pitches for 50 innings. That’s a great season for most HS and college players. What does 0 earned runs for 49 innings do to an ERA. I also wonder why they keep a pitch count? What do the coaches use it for, what would the conversation be in the dugout after the 45th inning, “ yea we’ll let him go for another 200 or so before we warm up the reliever”
I bow to the two pitchers who performed so well for the marathon game. Quite a feat. Just keeping the mental focus required to perform for that duration is incredible. I can't believe anyone thinks that is remotely healthy for an arm of any age.