Hey, not bad. It's been a journey so far inching towards mastery of the any% batting strats that you see on full display in this IL. The central technique is a bases-loaded squeeze bunt that is intended to either entice the CPU to make the throw to second (which won't work) or give the batter enough time to beat the throw to first outright. Which one of these two outcomes you opt for is an exciting test of your ability to read the scenario - the ball's trajectory and location, the fielder's arm, the baserunning speeds of the batter and the runner starting on first - extremely quickly. You can take things a step further by either mashing A or B to increase your runners' speeds or pressing X and then Y in quick succession to "stutter" their movements, perhaps making that throw to second base just a bit more enticing (but no less foolhardy). Knowing when to mash, when to stutter, and when to just let everything ride without button input is what it's all about.

In this particular run my top of the 1st was unfortunately not very good. Numerous attempted pick-offs, several unnecessary pitches thrown, and I took my second out much earlier than I wanted to, pressuring me to go for slap singles rather than risk it all on a bunt with significantly worse odds than usual. Still, I got that 17-0 finish, and that alone felt nice.

The bottom of the 1st was much better. You want the Star Chance as early as possible, with the first batter being ideal. I could have pitched to contact but a three-pitch strikeout isn't a ton slower and worked perfectly. After that I made the decision to go for Monty as catcher to make use of Laser Tag strats rather than put him on 2B for the higher-risk but higher-reward "scoop a dribbler" approach. Noki gave me a laserable hit, I got the tag, and Mario went down in three more pitches just a little later. There are faster strategies than these, BUT these strategies were executed totally correctly.

I'll likely try to improve this in the future.