Stop Joking Around

At the top of the fourth, Ko hits a triple but fails to score. In the bottom of the inning, Azuma hits a two-run homer to give the varsity team the lead. The portable team players in their third year tell their teammates that winning does not matter, only playing well enough to get promoted back to varsity. Daimon chews out center fielder Miki for strategically bunting against his orders to treat the scrimmage as a batting practice. At the bottom of the sixth, a tiring Ko tells catcher Akaishi that he can no longer pitch with both speed and control, and Akaishi has him go for speed. After Azuma hits another home run, Akaishi tells him the pitch was weak because this is Ko's first real game. When a third-year portable player, Makihara, is thrown out while running for home, Senda tells him Daimon has no intention of promoting anyone to the varsity team because that would mean admitting he was wrong. In the bottom of the seventh, Miki notices that if Ko had intentionally walked Azuma, the varsity team would be losing 1 to 3 instead of winning 5 to 3.