Pitcher Nutmegs Hitter in MLB The Show

OS user countryboy posted this cool clip last week from MLB The Show 23 and I can’t get it out of my head. Nutmegging a would-be bunting hitter (an AI batter at that!) is one of those “one in a million” sort of random events that make me remember why I play sports games.

It’s truly wild to get something like this to happen, and it’s something a developer would never plan for or think about. A game developer might think “well, this is why we want true physics and no canned animations” but you’re not thinking about in terms of how cool it would be if a hitter tried to bunt and the ball went through his legs.

You can get caught up in the negative game and say, “well, the hitter should have reacted and moved his legs differently” or “well, I bet the commentary didn’t even say anything about how wild that is.” To that I say, “hey, shut up, that was rad.”

It’s like Dr. Strange doing the math and seeing that one timeline where The Avengers defeat Thanos. It’s something you can’t possibly try to do against the AI again because the AI isn’t going to just bunt every pitch. If you got on the sticks with a friend, I imagine you could pull this off again with some work if you told your buddy to bunt every pitch, but because it’s the AI it’s like hitting that final Powerball number.

As OS user Ghost Of The Year said in the thread, “I’ve intentionally thrown almost 500 pitches at batters feet since last night. I’ve had my catcher catch the pitch behind the batter but I’ll be damned if I can stick the landing on this sticky wicket. It truly is a one in a million shot.”

It’s inconceivable, it’s brilliant, it’s why I play sports games.