The Bat Cave

I just finished playing the 2018 MLB season as the Mariners in MLB The Show. Like… all 162 games. I played every single one of them.

Not only that, but I updated the rosters of every MLB team every single day. If someone went on the DL, I took them off the MLB roster. If some random reliever for the Padres got called up in real life, he got called up in my game. I did every single transaction for every single team every single day (unless the player wasn’t in my game, which was rare).

I also used the exact same lineup and starting pitcher that the Mariners used for every single game… up until the last week of September. My team was in contention and the real Mariners fell off.. so they started putting out some janky lineups and started Roenis Elias in the second to last game – a must win for me. I had to veer off course because I needed to win every game possible.

It came down to the wire. It was between the Mariners and the Angels for the second Wild Card and both teams were within 2 games of each other for the last month of the season, but in the last week, we matched each other win for win and loss for loss and entered Game 162 tied at 86 wins.

I had Paxton on deck to start, but I decided to start Erasmo Ramirez instead and save Pax for the WCG. If Erasmo ran into early trouble, I had the option of bringing Paxton in later.

Healy hit an RBI double in the second and then Cruz hit a 3-run homer to give me an early 4-0 lead by the 4th.

Erasmo went 5.2 innings, giving up two hits, one walk, and no runs while striking out 7 before giving up a double, a walk, and another double to get chased in the 6th and it was a 4-2 game heading into the 7th.

Seager hit a 440 foot blast high up and off the right field foul pole to make it 5-2.

Colome struck out the first two batters in the 8th, but then he walked a guy and gave up a hit, so I brought in Diaz for a 4-out save, even though he had pitched in back-to-back games. He promptly gives up three runs. I can’t even remember the last time he gave up a run. He had been utterly dominant. He gets the last out and we go to the 8th tied at 5.

Meanwhile, the Angels-As score has been on the ticker this whole time and they are tied at 6 late in the game.

Healy gets his third hit of the game in the 8th and Zunino comes up in the middle of an 0-3 with 3 K performance. So I pinch run Maybin for Healy and pinch hit Vogelbach against a RHP and he hits a long fly to deep right center that looks like a pop up, but Maybin is running around the bases like it’s not going to be caught and it gets over the fence! 7-5!

Diaz strikes out the side in the 9th to secure the win.

And the Angels lose.

Awesome. I’m in the WCG against the Red Sox and I get to pitch James Paxton in that game.

But wait… my roster has been cut back to 25. They have Paxton in AAA. No worries… I’ll just make some changes…

Nope. I’m told that I can’t call him up to my MLB roster because a player has to be on the MLB roster or the Disabled List on September 1st to qualify for the postseason.

In real life, Paxton was on the DL on September 1st… but I had turned injuries off in my game and instead of using the DL, I just moved players to the minors when they got hurt in real life.

I can’t use Marco Gonzales either. Unreal.

162 games played with an absurd amount of time doing all the transactions and this is my reward.

On the bright side, Chris Sale was also on the DL on September 1st and he’s not on the Red Sox roster for the WCG. I’m facing David Price instead.

And it’s all up to Felix Hernandez.