Baseball: A Two-Way Player

Chapter 726 43: Three Homers in One Game, Reverse Sweep from 0-2 to 3-2!

However, statistics are ultimately just numbers; baseball is always a human sport at heart: Facing the slider Joe Smith sent his way, Lin Guanglai swung his bat decisively towards the incoming ball — judging from his grip and swing, he intentionally hit it in the opposite direction.

"Crack—!!!" After being intentionally walked twice, in his fifth at-bat of the game, Lin Guanglai finally had a chance to swing again, and once more he launched the ball towards the outfield.

The baseball's trajectory climbed steadily upward, its speed increasing, eventually vanishing momentarily from everyone's view in the stadium. When it reappeared, descending, the ball captured the defeated gazes of the hometown Indians fans.

"It's out, it's out!!!" Almost as soon as the baseball left the park, Michael Kay in the broadcast booth pounded the desk and visibly flushed with excitement; he then erupted with emotion, delivering the final verdict on the game: "Grand slam, grand slam! Yankees win, Yankees win! After five years, we're finally going back to the ALCS stage! Hallelujah, thank God—Asian boy, you are a miracle!"

At the same time the baseball soared into the stands, the Yankees' dugout erupted into chaos, but among the fist-pumping and celebrating crowd, two people's reactions stood out as odd:

One was Tanaka Masahiro, whose expression was strange. Lin Guanglai's three home runs in this game dredged up unpleasant memories from his time in the Nihon Professional Baseball (see Volume 3, 078-081, SoftBank vs. Rakuten episode). The instigator of that game was now his teammate — now Tanaka Masahiro could finally understand the feeling, and it wasn't too bad after all.

The other was Sabathia, who stood dumbfounded: Before today's game, Sabathia wasn't a devout believer and didn't have a particular religious faith; but after Lin Guanglai hit three home runs, he began to question if God might truly exist — if there were no God, why would everything Lin Guanglai prophesied come true?

For the hometown Indians, Lin Guanglai's grand slam crushed their spine: what was once a one-run difference in reach turned into a five-run gap in an instant — a gap as vast as heaven and earth.

The most immediate outcome was their middle-order hitters being struck out in the bottom of the ninth by Aroldis Chapman, with hardly any symbolic resistance, leaving them eliminated from the game.

As the umpire announced the end of the game, Yankees players eagerly poured out of the dugout, jumping and celebrating this hard-won victory and their astonishing comeback into the ALCS.

As the standout player of this game and even the entire series, Lin Guanglai naturally received the highest honors from his teammates: he was gathered in the center and then joyfully tossed into the air.

"It's unbelievable that the Indians lost, I thought for sure we'd be in for a bloody battle with them..." Houston Astros' manager A.J. Hinch remarked while watching the broadcast.

However, his exclamation received little enthusiasm in response. The bench coach beside him, Alex Cora, just shrugged and said, "Whether it's the Indians or the Yankees, it makes no difference, because we will absolutely not lose." Compared to Hinch, this assistant coach had more of the manager's air.

Hinch just stared at Cora, ultimately choosing to yield; as if accepting some reality, he let out a light sigh and echoed the sentiment: "You're right, it doesn't matter how strong the opponent is..." At this point, a strange smile appeared on Hinch's face, as if mocking the other or perhaps mocking himself.

"No matter what, the final outcome will not change — the winners of the championship series and the World Series will be us, the Astros."