Qbrick808

My feeling that Tampa had the best team was just from looking over the MLB players. It seemed like if I wanted to win with one of those five teams, the Rays would be my choice. I played as the Yankees against the Rays, so I did change around my Yankees lineup, but I left Tampa alone. Carlos Pena, the 1B for TB, hit the HR against me. Jeter was down in AAA when I first looked at the rosters. I assumed that was because of his ankle injury the other night. I chose to bring him up to play as my SS. I used the sliders that I generally use which are quite difficult, but I mean that in a good way as they make things competitive and challenging. The defensive gems I mentioned included two tremendous plays by Jeter moving to his right to field ground balls. Both were virtually in spots where it should be the 3B's play, but both times Jeter just barely got to the ball deep in the hole and then managed to get the runners out at first. I don't often see a SS even get to the ball where these were hit, and I had absolutely no expectation either time that he would actually get the runners out at 1B with the throws. A couple others were diving catches in the OF, but it seemed like the dive came just a split second later than usual, and the dives seemed to propel the defender further from where he jumped to where he caught the ball as he landed than what you normally see. There was also an OF catch that wasn't a dive, but it had to be the longest run deep into the corner to make a catch that I've ever seen since I've been playing this game. If using the classic controls is a big key for this, that may be a bit of a problem for me. Everyone has their preferences, but I just don't find the game to be much fun without using the analog sticks for both hitting and pitching. I've managed to get really good at the pitching, and this is coming from someone who had never even used an XBox 360 controller one time before starting with MLB 2K (in general I'm not a gamer by any means, but this was just something special from the first time I played it). I can give the sliders you listed and the classic controls a try, but I doubt I'll want to stay with the classic controls. I'll have to see what kind of a difference the sliders make because I've found settings which are pretty right on for me when I normally play the game, although, I'm constantly forced to alter them because the more I play and the more I improve, the game inevitably becomes a bit too easy. Then, after making some subtle adjustments to compensate for that, it usually is way too hard, so I have to tinker with it to find the combination which is just right (and then I go through that process again and again each time I find that I'm winning too much or too easily).

First reaction is to say, "very interesting." Looking over the rosters and lineups, it seemed to me that the best team in the division was Tampa Bay. The Yankees were obviously good as well, so I decided to play as the Bombers hosting the Rays. I didn't touch the Tampa roster or lineup, but I made changes to the Yanks. I didn't feel the timing needed to be quite so current to the day, so I brought up Jeter from the minors. I changed the lineup pretty drastically. There's just no way Russel Martin is batting cleanup on that team if I'm making the decisions; I had him batting 8th. The pitching matchup I got was Kuroda vs. Hellickson. I know it's just one game, but I did sense a different feel from the start. I played a solid game throughout, but there was a feeling of struggle to do some stuff which usually doesn't feel that way. I was making my pitches very well, but more hits were falling in than usual. I managed to get out of most jams, but Carlos Pena took me deep for a 2-run shot in the 2nd inning on a pitch that I threw pretty damned perfectly. Meanwhile, my offense had a weird vibe going. I was getting good wood on the ball the entire game, but I seemed to be hitting rockets right at guys all the time. Aside from my pitcher, I didn't strike out once all game. It was like all of my big hits were islands to themselves; I had four two-out doubles and all but the last were stranded. When I was mounting a comeback late, I had leadoff hits followed by GIDPs in both the 8th and 9th innings. The defense played a strange role as well. I mentioned I got down 2-0 in the 2nd inning, but I managed to hold them at 2 runs until the 9th because of 4 or 5 defensive gems that I'm just not used to seeing in this game. I ended up allowing 11 hits, but that could have easily been 15. However, after I finally got a run in the 7th to draw to 2-1, my defense totally betrayed me in the top of the 9th. The score went from 2-1 to 5-1, and all of that damage was due to my outfielders misplaying balls in epic fashion. A couple of balls that should have been singles turned into triples, and Nick Swisher managed to run away from an easy can of corn at the last second (I did nothing out of the ordinary) allowing another guy who had no right even reaching base to get all the way to third. Heading into the bottom of the 9th, the juice wasn't quite there down 5-1 instead of 2-1, but I still got a rally going and brought home another run. I got a leadoff double from Teixeira and then scored him with a Cano single, so with no outs there seemed to be some momentum building, but then reality snuck into my computer as A-Rod let all of the air out of the balloon by grounding into a double play. Like I said, there did seem to be a different feel to the game, but we'll have to see how things go after more action.