I play a bunch of video games, that's how I got here. Through some four decades of gaming I have lived every power fantasy from saving the Earth to being a guitar-shredding rockstar. To this day, nothing feels better than taking the mound in MLB The Show 25 and sitting down three of the world's best hitters on 9 or 10 pitches. You can do it too, and I'm here to tell you how.
The Feeling Out Process
A nine-inning game is a marathon, not a sprint. The first few innings are just the prelude. Every hitter has some pitch they'd rather you didn't throw. The lower the player's rank, the more holes in their swing there are. In your opponent's first few plate appearances, it is your job to find out what they can't hit. It could be a certain pitch, a certain location, or likely some combination of the two. If they can't catch up to a fastball high and tight, make sure you feed them a steady diet of them.
By the way, you are not required to throw strikes. If you opponent wants to expand the strike zone, let them do it. There's a caveat to this, a batter quirk called Bad Ball Hitter. They can rake balls that are way out of the strike zone. Some current players that have this quirk are 91 overall Live Series Shohei Ohtani and All-Star Bryan Reynolds. Learning what the opposing lineup can do is part of the journey.
Be a Confidence Man
One of the underrated aspects of MLB The Show is the pitcher confidence mechanic. Just as in real baseball, when a pitcher is in a groove, he becomes a freight train that's difficult to derail. Pitcher confidence increases by throwing strikes, getting swings and misses, and of course by getting sweet, sweet strikeouts. The level of confidence gained is higher if you make a batter look really foolish by swinging outside the zone.
You lose confidence meter by throwing pitches taken for a ball, or giving up hits. The worst penalty, of course, is giving up a home run. Errors in the field ding your confidence too, even though they are sometimes determined by RNG. Hey, real pitchers lose no hitters, shutouts and wins when the shortstop boots one too.
A classic trick in the old days was to hurl your nastiest fastballs at the opposing pitcher to get easy confidence. Now Diamond Dynasty gives all teams designated hitters, so that doesn't work. But most people are still going to put their lightest hitter batting in the ninth spot. It may be worth walking a batter intentionally to get to him. This also applies if the next guy in the lineup is a slowpoke. If your pitcher has a good sinker, groundballs will be one of your best weapons. In the current MLB 25 meta, if your pitcher has a sinker, he has a really good one. More on that later.
Tunnel Vision
One of the best techniques currently used by pitchers is tunneling. As I've mentioned a lot and will continue to, the battle between the pitcher and hitter is a mental one. Tunneling is the art of making one pitch look like another one, forcing the batter to make the wrong decision. Even if they make contact, it's hopefully a ground ball or a foul ball.
Cutters and sinkers, for example, are still fastballs. But once you include pitchers with different deliveries and quirks such as Outlier, there can be some wild variations in the velocity of these fastballs. One of the new pitches in The Show this year is the sweeper, a variation of the slider. A pitcher with both of these in his arsenal can cause all kinds of havoc. Also, one of the best combos in baseball history is fastball/changeup, and it has been since the beginning of the game.
Pinpoint Pitching Puts It Right Where You Want It
There are several different control schemes for pitching, but pinpoint is by far the most accurate. Pinpoint had its origins in 2K's old baseball games. You're essentially using the analog stick to draw a motion, dictating how well the pitch will work. You'll be graded on the motion, and perfect pitches will end up almost exactly where you aimed. It's high-risk, high-reward, but it feels so good to execute. Different players will have different motions depending on the pitches in their arsenal. Also, with baserunners on, they will pitch differently from the stretch. A left-handed pitcher will reverse all the motions from the direction a right-handed pitcher would throw them.
Is it a lot to learn? Absolutely. But high-level players can easily throw 70 percent or better of their pitches with a perfect rating, making them really difficult to get hits off consistently. Yes, there are perfect swings that can counter this. But as in real life, perfect pitches tend to happen more often than perfect swings, especially at lower ranks.
Then Get The Best Pitchers
The 87 overall Topps Now Garrett Crochet has a nice five-pitch mix, including a sweeper, sinker, and 98 mph fastball. The sweeper is a new pitch in MLB The Show this year, basically a slower slider with more horizontal movement. Crochet's is elite, as evidenced by his 43 percent whiff rate on the pitch.
Crochet is a Diamond Quest reward so he's easy to get. If you don't feel like playing the mode (but I would love it if you did, it's very fun), his card is cheap on the marketplace. He's a good foundation for your rotation early in the season.
I would ordinarily not recommend a pitcher I haven't tested yet, but I think I'm safe with this choice. This week's update unveiled a new John Donaldson card as a collection reward. He has the powerful Outlier quirk on two of his pitches. He has an excellent forkball, which is not a pitch you see from most hurlers.
You can unlock him by collecting 20 Negro League players through modes including Storylines and Moments. Donaldson defined the meta last year, and until I hear differently, I'm expecting his card to lock people down in 2025 as well.
Starters are great, but even the best will eventually give way to relievers. One of the best is Yankees save artist Devin Williams. He boasts a cutter, a fastball, and a screwball that's a throwback to the olden days. That pitch mix has made batters spin themselves into the ground for years now.