1. I reduced the pitch speed and still cannot swing. The ball comes so fast, if I think at all about taking, I miss it. What can I do to have more realistic at bats without plain guessing?
This is my first year with MLB The Show. I'm on Veteran level. I spent lots of time in batting practice at first. You have to get a solid "feel" for the strike zone. It just takes time. Eventually, you can tell right away if the ball is breaking at all, meaning you have some time, or if it is level, fastball. What works for me is I focus on the strike zone and ignore everything else. I still get fooled sometimes, but my strikeouts are way down and I'm hitting .300 now.
MVP 05 had colored pitches, so you could tell if it was a fastball, curveball, or changeup. It was easier to decide what you wanted to do, because you could see the color in his hand before it left. It gave you an extra second. With this game, you just have to guess. Every pitch comes out of his hand the exact same way. They call this realistic?
The pitches do come out differently. What is realistic about a differently colored ball? I don't focus on the release though and focus on whether the ball has any movement.
2a. Pitching. I choose my pitch, and it has a bunch of arrows showing how it breaks. If my curveball has 4 arrows pointing straight down, and I want to locate it down and away (on a right handed batter), do I put the cursor in the bottom right corner, or is that where the bottom most arrow should be?
Generally, the bottom most arrow is around where the ball should end up with a perfect pitch. 12-6 curveballs tend to break a little more if you throw a perfect pitch, so you might want to move it up some to keep them out of the dirt. Perfect sliders tend to break outside a little more, so you should bring them in a little if you want the pitch to be a strike. But sliders outside the zone are effective, and don't end up in the dirt.
2b. With the pitch meter, I go up into the yellow part, and come down perfectly, and the ball skips in the dirt. What the **** do you have to do to get the pitch to hit the target?
see above.
3. Why the hell does the pitcher in batting practice throw me 11 out of 20 balls WAY out of the zone? How the hell is it batting practice if less than half are hittable? (This was just a rant)
think of it as a chance to really bump up your plate discipline! They have to do it this way, or the only time you could practice seeing balls outside the zone would be in game.
