Suisei throws smoke, some commenters throw shade.

There’s always a degree of risk when a professional baseball team calls in someone from outside the sporting world to throw a game’s ceremonial first pitch. Sure, the celebrity might be popular and charismatic, but do they have the arm to put the ball over the plate all the way from the pitcher’s mound?

So it was an especially bold move of Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines to give the honor of throwing out the opening pitch on Monday to someone who has no physical arm at all.

If you’re not necessarily a baseball fan but still find the name “Lotte” familiar, it might be because the Chiba-based Marines are owned by Lotte, the company that makes some of Japan’s favorites sweet snack foods. This summer Lotte has a cross-promotional deal going with Vocaloid virtual idol Hatsune Miku and VTuber/virtual YouTuber Hoshimachi Suisei, who’re appearing in a music video for their new duet “Ao no Sumika” that brings the pair into the real world while sharing some Lotte-brand ice cream.

The virtual performers’ crossover into physical spaces continued on July 20, when the Marines hosted the visiting Soft Bank Hawks at their stadium in Chiba City. Miku and Suisei were recruited to perform the opening pitch ceremony, which unfolded as shown in the video below where Suisei not only gets the pitch across the plate, by does so by delivering a blistering fastball.

The ceremony starts off with Miku and Suisei appearing on the outfield’s digital scoreboard to introduce themselves and greet the fans in attendance.

Suisei: “Everyone in the ballpark, let’s make this an awesome day!”
Miku: “You’re going to be throwing out the first pitch today, right, Sui-chan?”
Suisei: “That’s right! I’m going to try throwing some serious heat!”
Miku: “All right! I’m sure you can do it, Sui-chan!”
Suisei: “Thanks, Miku-chan! OK, here I go!”

Marines outfielder Shingo Ishikawa is then called up to the plate to serve as batter, and that’s when the video reveals a human-height digital display has been set up on the pitcher’s mound. The screen comes to life, Suisei pounds her mitt a few times, goes through her windup, and fires off a fastball so fast that’s it’s almost hard to see as it whizzes right past Ishikawa.

Fans who got a kick out of the toss have reacted online with:

“Whoa, Suisei can seriously throw.”
“Aint no way anyone is hitting that.”
“Had to have been going around 160 kilometers (99.4 miles) per hour.”
“Sign this girl to a pitching contract for the team right now.”
“I honestly think it’s more natural to do something like this and have someone who’s actually involved with the parent company do the opening pitch than to bring in some random celebrity who’s got no connection to baseball or the team.”

On the other hand, some commenters have been less than impressed with Suisei’s “pitch.”

“LOL it’s just a pitching machine. You call that an ‘opening pitch?’”
“Don’t invite a VTuber to do this kind of thing if they can’t actually throw the ball themselves.”
“Impressed that they could think of something this lame. Could have had a kid from a local baseball team do this instead.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to have someone dress up in a Hoshimachi Suisei costume to throw the pitch instead?”

It’s worth noting that, like all the other teams in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, the Marines will play 143 games this season, meaning they’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 home games, so it’s not like Suisei and Miku’s day at the ballpark has created a severe shortage of opportunities for anyone else to throw out the first pitch. On the other hand, the Marines did go on to lose the game to the Hawks by a score of 5 to 4, giving up the winning run in the top of the ninth inning, so the virtual stars didn’t wind up being goddesses of victory for the team either. Their fans at least had something to smile about before the game got away from the home team, though, and for those who prefer their Miku projects without a side of sports, she’s still got her ukiyo-e woodblock print art endeavor going on.

Source: Twitter/@PacificleagueTV via Itai News, PR Times
Images: PR Times
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