No matter how difficult you make the settings, no matter how crappy you make your team, it's still a really easy game. The Melonheads' 7-1 win over the Indians proved this.
After allowing a first inning homer to Jim Thome, Marky Dubois was excellent. He threw a complete game, striking out seven and allowing nine hits. He needed just 80 pitches to record 27 outs. The Cleveland lineup was swinging at everything. There was one three-ball count all game.
This was done without trying particularly hard to paint the corners or even to throw Dubois' best pitches. I played along with what Marky wanted to do. Any time he shook off the catcher, I chose a different pitch until there was one that he approved of. He frequently threw his two worst pitches. It didn't stop him.
On the offensive side of things, a big second inning once again chased the opposing starter. Unlike the last game, the opposing starter, Christina Beattie, was a 10/10-rated pitcher. She gave up an unearned run in the first inning and Maria Luna hit a grand slam in the second inning.
Maria Luna. Hit a grand slam. Not with Aluminum Power. Not even with normal power. It was an opposite-field line drive that cleared the LF fence. This game is the least challenging thing ever.
The one other bright spot for the Indians was a ridiculous throw by their right fielder for a 9-3 putout. Granted, the runner was Kimmy Eckman. It was a pretty hard-hit ball, but it was a seriously perfect throw.
That's baseball, though. Sometimes great pitchers have crappy games. Sometimes lousy hitters hit home runs. If this was just baseball being its typical weird self, it could be dismissed as an anomaly.
There was so much more than that. This game frequently gives presents to players. And not just little drugstore presents that were bought on the way to the party. We're talking big presents. We're talking Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range rifles.
In the top of the fourth, Cleveland had runners on the corners with two outs and tried to double steal. Not one of those double steal plays that you constantly see in Little League where the runner from third won't try to score until the catcher throws down to second. Both runners just plain hightailed it. Even when Reese came out from behind the plate and stood in the middle of the basepath, poor Christina Beattie just kept on running straight into his tag.
In the bottom of the sixth, Gretchen Hasselhoff came up with runners on second and third. She hit a little tapper that the pitcher, Jillian Paine, fielded and threw home. The runner from third had barely broken for home. There was more than enough time to throw to first and then get the runner at the plate. Instead, no outs were recorded on that play. That brought up Ricky Johnson with the bases loaded. Ricky lined out softly to Paine. The runners stayed put at the bases. That didn't stop Paine from throwing to third! The throw was wild and went out of play. Runners advanced two bases. Two runs scored to make it 7-1.
Even with a strong CPU team facing a weak human-controlled team playing on very difficult settings, the game will still make enough mental errors that it's unbelievably easy for the human to win. While I understand we're looking at this 13 years after the game was developed, and while we must remember that this is a kids' game, the most difficult options should present at least some sort of challenge.
W: Marky Dubois (1-0) L: Christina Beattie (0-1)
With the incredible ease of this game established, it's about time we stop playing around and break this thing.
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