Players that love good pitching inMLB The Show 23will find that having a five-pitch arsenal leaves hitters unable to quickly deduce which pitch has been thrown at them. Elite gamers will attempt to size up the incoming pitch early and the key to success is to have a few pitches of roughly the same speed and release with vastly different motions.
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The tournament champions in Diamond Dynasty seasons often win not because they have the highest-rated pitcher but because their pitcher’s selection is so good. When playingMLB The Show 23’s Road to the Show, these five pitches can easily lead the league in any pitching category,
Best Fastballs
The best closing pitchersbring the heat with fastballs. Their velocity gives players very little time to locate the ball before making a swing. They’re also more accurate, so when pitchers know exactly where they want to throw a ball, the fastball will deviate the least.
The two-seam fastball and the cutter both appear to go straight and then break left or right. This is about impossible for hitters to guess since their velocity is only off by one mile per hour. Players can target them high or low and on the corners, the only areapitchers who know what they’re doingaim for.
Best Offspeed Pitch
Some pitchers stay away from the splitter because it’s so close in velocity to a fastball that it might not disrupt a hitter’s timing. But in practice, the opposite is true. Because the pitch is only 5 miles per hour slower, it often catches hitters out in front for an increase in misses and ugly contact.
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The best-starting pitcherslean on this as a strikeout pitch. The cutter and two-seam fastball for left and right while the spiller breaks sharply down, providing a third direction that an almost identical-looking pitch can break.
Best Breaking Balls
This is where things really get brutal. The slider is already the best strikeout pitch in the illustrious history of baseball as its sharp diagonal break at the last moment and high speed (only one mile per hour slower than the splitter) make it tricky by all counts.
To make this even worse, add a slurve which looks exactly like the slider but has an even deeper cut at the expense of just four miles per hour. Gamers will often believe they’re got the slider lined up and then swing and miss. Toss the slider on the corner and the slurve out of the zone to get some ugly cuts.
MLB The Show 23is available now for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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