Hitting Dingers Practice
Alright, so today I decided I really needed to work on hitting more homers in MLB The Show. Felt like I was leaving too many runners on base, popping up easy pitches. Just wasn’t getting the job done, you know?
So, I fired up the game and jumped straight into Practice Mode. Seemed like the best place to just grind out some swings without the pressure of a real game. I picked Coors Field, obviously. Gotta get that elevation helping me out, makes you feel better even if it’s just practice. For the hitter, I went with Aaron Judge. Big guy, big power, figured if anyone could help me figure this out, it’s him.
First few minutes were kinda rough, not gonna lie. I was swinging like a rusty gate. Early on everything, late on everything else. Popped up a bunch, hit weak grounders. The CPU pitcher, even on a lower setting, was making me look silly with off-speed stuff. Used the default Zone hitting interface, which I prefer, but my plate discipline was just gone.
I realized I was trying too hard, just mashing the power swing button on every single pitch. That wasn’t working. So, I took a breath. Decided to try a few things:
- Focused only on pitches middle-in. Just let everything else go. Sounds simple, but man, it’s hard to lay off sometimes.
- Switched to using mostly the normal swing (X button on PlayStation, or A on Xbox I think?). Trying to just make good contact first, let the power rating do the work.
- Really tried to watch the ball out of the pitcher’s hand. Track it all the way in.
Okay, things started clicking a bit better then. I started making more solid contact. Wasn’t trying to pull everything either. If the pitch was middle-away, I just tried to drive it that way. Got a few nice line drives to the gap.
Then I started mixing in the power swing again, but only on pitches I felt were grooved, right in my happy zone. Middle-high fastballs, hanging breaking balls. That’s when I finally started launching some. Got a few no-doubters with Judge, and yeah, that felt good. That sound off the bat, you know? Chef’s kiss.
Spent maybe an hour just doing that. Focused on timing, recognizing pitches, and not forcing the power swing. It wasn’t like I hit 50 homers, maybe like 8 or 9 that felt really good, plus a bunch of solid hits. Still struck out a fair bit chasing bad pitches, gotta work on that.
What I Learned (or Re-Learned)
Main thing was patience. Can’t just swing out of your shoes every time. Gotta wait for your pitch. Also, normal swing is way more useful than I was giving it credit for, even for power hitters. Sets up the timing, then you can use power swing more strategically.
Still got work to do, especially on recognizing breaking balls down and away. Those still get me. But yeah, felt like a decent session. Hopefully, it translates into some actual games soon. We’ll see.
