MLB ’14 the Show Developer Blog: Quick Counts and Player Lock

SCEA has released its first developer blog for the upcoming MLB the Show game which is scheduled to be released on April 1st on PS3 and PS Vita and sometime in May on PS4. This blog covers two new features, Quick Counts and Player Lock.

Quick Counts is in essence a random batting count generator, you come up with a randomly selected situation when you come to the plate or pitching, it is intended to make the game go by faster.

Player Lock is what it sounds like, you can set yourself to be any player on the field as long as you set yourself to be that particular player, for example, if you want to play the entire game as David Ortiz as the DH, you can and you will only have to play the parts of the game he is involved in, which most of the time will mean anywhere from 3-4 at bats per game.  If you need a better idea of what this is, you can take RTTS as an example since it is the same thing except you get to use another real life player as opposed to using your created player, which could be interesting because since you can do it in any game mode, you could kind of do a form of RTTS in dynasty mode as your favorite player if you were so inclined to do so.

Another feature discussed in the video is a presentation setting called Fast Play, which is striping the broadcast settings to the bare minimum so that you can get through the games faster.

SCEA has said it will have weekly developer blogs over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for info.

Wild Card Games This Week

There will be 3 wild card games, starting tonight when the Tampa Bay Rays go to Texas to face the Rangers in a game to decide the second Wild Card team. The Winner of tonight’s game will go to Cleveland to play the Indians on Wednesday in a winner take all Wild Card game. Tonight’s starting pitchers will be David Price and Martin Perez both left handed pitchers.

The NL game will be Tuesday and it features the Cincinnati Reds going to Pittsburgh to face the Pirates. The starting pitchers are currently listed as Johnny Cueto and Francisco Liriano. The Pirates finished as the top wild card team in the NL and Cincinnati was the second wild card team which was actually determined by a series this weekend in Cincinnati.

The winners of these games will face the top teams in each league which were the Boston Red Sox in the AL and St. Louis Cardinals in the NL.

The games:

9/30: Tampa Bay @ Texas 8:07

10/1: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh 8:07

10/2: TB/TEX @ Cleveland 8:07

Results will be posted as they happen.

Washington Nationals Game Cancelled Due To Shooting in Washington DC

 

 

Due to the shooting at the US Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. tonight’s Atlanta Braves @ Washington Nationals game has been postponed. The game will be made up Tuesday as part of a day-night double header with start times of 1:05 and 7:05 PM ET.  13 people have died including the one of the two suspected gunmen, and the Nationals Park parking lot has been used as a meeting place for families to meet up with those who work at the Naval Yard. As you might have guessed, the other suspected shooter is on the loose, local residents are urged to stay inside while the manhunt goes on for the second suspected shooter.

Dodgers, Padres have themselves a throwdown. Or do they?

I do not come here to condone fighting, but when they happen I expect a good show. But what happened last night between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres wasn’t a fight, it was a mere rugby scrum. Let’s look at the video before breaking it down.

As you can see Carlos Quentin takes a pitch off the shoulder and starts heading towards the mound slowly, before Zack Greinke says something to him which forced him to charge the mound. Once Quentin got to the mound they collided on the mound and went down. The benches cleared but there were no clear punches thrown on top of the pile but on the bottom you can see a couple thrown but there is not clear evidence they landed.

When I think of a fight I definitely think of the fights in hockey being a hockey fan, and that is where punches are usually thrown and landed. So I have a hard time calling this a “brawl”, it is more of a rugby scrum. However there will be suspensions in all likelihood and Zack Greinke suffered a broken collarbone. The teams play a three game set next week on April 15th through the 17th.