A cute Japanese detail for Eijun fans that translation may lose...
This seems like a standard image of Eijun epic-pitching, which it is. But what I want to highlight is the text on the right hand side of the panel.
This bit. Because those two kanji, they say Eijun’s name.
Some folk probably know this but in Japanese, especially in manga, it’s not uncommon for there to be tiny little characters (called furigana) down the right side which tell you how to read/pronounce kanji.
Mostly this is just standard phonetic script for the word.
Sometimes it gives kanji with a western word reading (like pitching) so that the Japanese reader has some context.
And sometimes it conveys an extra nuance.
In Japanese, it is possible to say two things at the same time by writing one word in kanji characters and then giving the reading/pronunciation for another word alongside it. This is far from unusual. It often happens in manga, in books, in song lyrics. These are often (not always) lost in translation, with the translator often having to choose either the word or the reading to translate coherently, not both.
This language trick generally implies that these two terms mean the same thing, or that one indicates the other.
This is one of those times, and for those who don’t speak Japanese, just in case the translation misses it...
The line probably best translates as “The ace, Sawamura’s pitching also ramps up a gear.” but the original Japanese is basically telling readers that now Sawamura = Ace.