Ohtani Shohei is a player that Lin Guanglai, as his friend and rival, knows all too well: Past experiences repeatedly tell him one thing—that Ohtani Shohei is definitely a difficult batter to face.
It's not that his current raw strength is exceptionally strong; in fact, whether it's Ohtani Shohei or Lin Guanglai, both are highly anticipated genius high school graduates, but ultimately they are still "semi-finished products" that have yet to fully realize their potential, and there is still quite a long way for them to grow into core players who can stand alone for a team.
The main reason Lin Guanglai says he is difficult to deal with is that either one of them knows the other far too well:
In high school, the two faced off quite a bit—besides a formal confrontation in the Summer League of 2011, because the Tohoku and Kantou regions are relatively close, Hanamaki East and Waseda Jitsugyo also arranged to play quite a few practice matches thereafter;
