One Outs

Seeking a way to rescue his struggling baseball team, veteran hitter Hiromichi Kojima travels to Okinawa and encounters Toua Tokuchi, a pitcher who dominates a one-on-one gambling version of the sport. Tokuchi's greatest weapon is not exceptional speed but his ability to read opponents and manipulate their decisions.

He joins the Lycaons under an extraordinary agreement: five million yen for every out he records, against a fifty-million-yen penalty for every run he concedes. Each game consequently becomes a contest against both the opposing team and an owner determined to exploit the contract, with Tokuchi using calculation and psychological pressure to turn apparently unfavorable situations around.