Chapter 14: Talent vs Hard work
That's why Mio follow his routine closely without making any excuses. Even though God gave him a talent , without hardwork he will not be who he was right now. Deep down, Mio passionate heart can't accept it if he didn't try harder than anyone.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
Mio's pitches hitting the wall resound around the area. After he warm up his shoulder he fix his grip on the ball. Right now, Mio was trying to throw cutter. Mio rarely throw this pitch. He want to improve on his other pitches first, now he have achieve it he can start on practicing his cutter. His cutter is thrown similar to the four-seam fastball, across the seams. It's a little more advanced pitch
The difference was rotate your middle and index finger and bring them together, leaving your middle finger along the seam of the closed end of the U-shaped seam. Bring your thumb slightly up the inside of the ball.
When you follow through, snap your wrist down while applying pressure with your middle finger. Mio follow the course and throw it with all he got.
*Fwooshh*
The ball was thrown like his other fastball. People might mistaken it as fastball down the middle and swung for it but then the ball sink so much that the batter miss it. Mio look at his hand, take other ball and practice a bit more.
The sound of gasping for air come out from Mio, he is out of breath. Mio take a deep breath and release it slowly gaining enough oxygen. He stand up and clean up the place, then he wash up. After all it's time to eat and Mio warp up his personal training.
***
When Mio arrived at the dining hall, he can heard the discussions about today game.
'Hey, did you hear Tanba no longer the Ace? '
'Seriously? '
'Even though we won? '
'We only won because kawakami replaced him'
'We only have three months until summer'
'If Tanba's not the ace, then who's going to be our pitcher? '