Part 21: Update XIX - Sorry, But Those Are The Fucking Breaks.
Update XIX - Sorry, But Those Are The Fucking Breaks.
♪ BGM: Closer's Theme ♫
So, it's pretty much time for the endgame. But before that, we have some unfinished business.

Let's use this.

♪ BGM: The Entrance ♫







Bobson has re-learned the slider!


TheMcD's Baseball Stuff posted:
Tom Seaver is probably the player most associated with the New York Mets and their greatest legend. He was the centerpiece of their rise from expansion team bottom dweller (the Mets joined the National League in 1962 and as such sucked in the beginning). Seaver would debut with the Mets in 1967 and instantly made an impact, establishing himself as the team's ace immediately. And he would be an integral piece of the 1969 "Miracle Mets", the Mets team that went from bottom two finishes in the ten team National League from 1962 to 1968 to winning 100 games in their next season and making the playoffs with a clutch stretch of winning in the late part of the season. Those Mets would go on to win the World Series.
Seaver would find himself traded to the Cincinnati Reds after a contract dispute went bad in 1977 at the age of 32, but he continued playing well up until his retirement after his age-41 season, though his stretch from 1969 to 1975, in which he won three Cy Young awards, stands out as a particularly great peak, and he found himself elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
David Cone was another one of those pitchers that found himself a part of the late 90s Yankees dynasty, though he did it at a later point in his career. Cone started out in 1986 with the Kansas City Royals and quickly found himself with the Mets in 1987. He pitched pretty solid, but his peak started relatively late, with his age-31 season in 1994, in which he won the Cy Young award with the Royals, and in 1995 Cone would find himself with the Yankees, where he went on to be a part of their four World Series wins from 1995 to 2000.
Cone was also notable for being a very active players' union representative, representing the entire American League during the 1994 strike, with him finding himself both lobbying politicans and bending over backwards towards player crowds at rallies to say that "the owners are trying to stick it up your ass without Vaseline. Thats what this strike is about. This is about your rights, not your money." His efforts resulted in the Curt Flood Act, which allowed baseball players to bring antitrust lawsuits against owners, which had previously been impossible because of a specific exemption for baseball.
Steve Carlton, to sum it up, is the god of the slider. He pitched for 24 years and was great for most of that time, and he did it on the back of a devestating slider. But don't take my word for it, here's a video of MLB players talking about how unhittable Carlton's slider was. Carlton started decently enough from 1966 to 1968, but a far cry from dominating. During this time, which he spent with the St. Louis Cardinals, he would learn from Bob Gibson, a pitcher who at the time was the nightmare of batters all over the league.
The real shift in his career came in an exhibition game in Japan, where he faced one of the best hitters in Japanese baseball's history, Sadaharu Oh. Oh already hit two home runs off of Carlton, so he figured "what the hell" and threw Oh a slider. Oh backed away from the pitch, but it still ended up inside the strike zone. And then Carlton knew he had something with the slider.
While Carlton started with the Cardinals, his career is far more linked to the Philadelphia Phillies, the team with which he had four Cy Young seasons and won a World Series title (though he also won one with the Cardinals, he wasn't established back then). Carlton would continue pitching solidly until he was 40, and after adding two bad seasons and one very short stint in 1988, he would put a cap on his first-ballot Hall of Fame career.
With that done, let's get some more advice from our wise mentor.

♪ BGM: Closer's Theme ♫




And with that, let's get to Game Seven. I've done everything.
Are you sure? If you tell the manager you're ready, you will fast forward to game seven of the World Series. Anything left undone in the world will remain undone, and this will affect the ending you receive.

Fast forward to game seven?
Yep.






Time to have one last chat with everybody before the big game.

















































So the game does basically tell you here that the knuckle-curve is a god pitch.



And now, it's truly time.







♪ BGM: Silence ♫
That's the thing about being a bullpen pitcher. Until you are needed, you have no control over the game. I'd spent the last two days doing everything I could to prepare for one inning that may not come, and especially to be ready for an at bat against the Machine that was unlikely to happen. Despite all the work I put into getting ready for the game, I hoped that it would be a blowout and I wouldn't have to pitch. It's not that I was afraid I would blow the game again, but what if I had to face The Machine... I had the pitches to strike him out, but would I be able to forget his terrible prophecy? And should I forget it? Was there something I could do to prevent it from happening? I hoped that my teammates would come out of the gate, firing on all cylinders, and I wouldn't even need to pitch... let alone face The Machine. Of course, in the back of my head I knew I wouldn't be so lucky.
The game moved quickly, with both starting pitchers dominating through the first several innings. I don't know if it was the light rain, or the day off but the hitters just couldn't drive the ball. I wondered if the Illuminati had something to do with this, since they knew as well as I did that a high-scoring game would make it less likely that I would face The Machine. In the fourth inning, St. Louis scored a run on a sacrifice fly by The Machine after the number 2 hitter bunted a runner over to third base. It was like they knew it would be a low-scoring game. New York scored three in the fifth, but thoughts of a blowout were dashed when they stranded the bases loaded. The Machine hit a HR to lead off the seventh and St. Louis threatened to tie the game, but the setup men worked out of it. By this time, I knew what was going to happen. I could see how the lineup would shake out. Whether by fate or the will of the Illuminati...
New York would go into the top of the ninth inning with a 3-2 lead, and the top of the order up for St. Louis.














♪ BGM: The Entrance ♫
And here we are.





So now it's time for the final battle. This time, we need to go through three batters in a row instead of just one. Now, I could just throw cheapout knuckle-curves, but let's try to do this without abusing them. Let's go.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Strike 1! The batter swung right through the heat! The hitter is now looking for a fastball!
Thankfully, Harvey here sets us up for the other three-strike-combo. First, the change...
Bobson throws a changeup!
Strike 2! The batter got out in front of that pitch and just missed the change-up.
And here I should've just thrown a curve, but instead, I went for something different.
Bobson throws a slider!
The batter fouls off the pitch as it runs in on his hands! There are still two strikes on the batter.
I'm not sure why I wasn't going to the curve here, maybe it just felt too easy. Instead...
Bobson throws a fastball!
Strike 3! The batter swung right through the heat! Bobson struck him out!









Let's see if we can get this guy too. The RNG in this game is a fickle mistress.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Ball 1! The pitch was just off the outside corner and the batter takes it for a ball!
Aw, horsecrap.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Ball 2! The pitch was just off the outside corner and the batter takes it for a ball!
Oh, fuck you.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Strike 1! The batter swung right through the heat!
OK, we can work with this.
Bobson throws a changeup!
Strike 2! The batter took that changeup on the outside corner.
Yeah! And now, to finish him off with the curve!
Bobson throws a curveball!
Ball 3! Even though there are two strikes, the batter manages to lay off the curveball in the dirt.
WHAT.
The hitter is now looking for a curveball!
Well, that doesn't help me too much, I think. I don't believe there's a killer pitch for "looking curveball", like the fastball is for "looking changeup" and vice versa. Uh, fuck it, throw some more heat, just get it in the god damn zone.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Ball 4! The pitch was just off the outside corner and the batter takes it for a ball! Bobson issued the walk. The runner reached base.
FUCK.

However, this does not end the game. We're still going, after all, there's just a guy on first, that's not too terrible.




♪ BGM: Terminate ♫









And now, it's really time for the true showdown. As is befitting of The Machine, pitching combat does not quite work the same way here. For instance, remember the spitball? You'd think it'd be great here, right? Well, here's what happens if you throw a spitball.
Bobson throws a spitball!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch!


Carlos Rodriguez is now looking for the spitball!
And if you for some insane reason throw it again...
Bobson throws a spitball!


And then you lose. That is how fearsome The Machine is - he can hit a pitch that is literally unhittable and just magically removes a ball from the count. Let's not do that. Not that we could, since we're not cheaters. Let's just start with a fastball, as usual, since the game doesn't recognize habits that other players could recognize, like how when Pablo Sandoval just suddenly entirely stopped swinging at the first pitch.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Ball 1! The pitch was just off the outside corner and the batter takes it for a ball!
Fuckin' shit. Uh, more heat? We kinda need to get a strike.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Ball 2! The pitch was just off the outside corner and the batter takes it for a ball! The hitter is now looking for a fastball!
Oh god this is a disaster. Thankfully, we get a free strike now.
Bobson throws a changeup!
Strike 1! The batter got out in front of that pitch and just missed the change-up.
Now, let's try and see if we can sneak one with the slider.
Bobson throws a slider!
Strike 2! The batter took the slider for a called strike!


So, here we are. The thing is, there is something we can do to prevent the prophecy from coming true. In fact, it'll be staring at you once you enter your pitch selection. But we're not taking it. We are striking this motherfucker out. And to avenge Moose, we're going to do it with the knuckle-curve. Let's throw it. He can't possibly know it's coming.
Bobson throws a knuckle-curve!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch! There are still two strikes.

Rodriguez is now looking for the knuckle-curve.

Now, let's mix it up.
Bobson throws a changeup!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch! There are still two strikes. Rodriguez is now looking for a changeup.
Well, we should be able to get him with the heat, now.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch! There are still two strikes.
Carlos Rodriguez is now looking for a slider, in addition to the changeup.
This is another trick Rodriguez has. He can look for multiple pitches, and he can anticipate pitches, as opposed to other batters that just start looking for what you just threw. So after you throw a fastball, Rodriguez is expecting you to mix it up with a breaking ball or a change, and he'll punish you if you do so. So, I guess we'll go with the curve, he hasn't seen that yet.
Bobson throws a curveball!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch! There are still two strikes.
Holy shit. This could turn into some Brandon Belt vs. Jaime Barria shit.
Rodriguez is now looking for a curveball.
OK, I guess we'll go back to the heat.
Bobson throws a fastball!
Rodriguez fouls off the pitch! There are still two strikes.
Rodriguez is now looking for a fastball.
Yes! There it is!
Bobson throws a knuckle-curve!
Bobson fooled Rodriguez with the knuckle-curve! Strike three!

There are only a few ways you can strike out Rodriguez here.
- If he's looking slider and changeup, a fastball will get him if he's already fouled off three balls.
- If he's looking fastball and slider, a changeup will get him if he's already fouled off three balls.
- If he's looking fastball and change, a slider will get him if he's already fouled off three balls.
- If he's looking fastball and you've thrown a slider at him, but no curveballs, a curveball will get him if he's already fouled off three balls.
- Finally, if you've already thrown him a knuckle-curve and he's looking either fastball or change, the knuckle-curve will get him.
A side note - Machine will hack wildly at potential ball fours if he has strikes to spare, and will foul off basically everything at the end, as you have seen. But now, we've beaten The Machine!

♪ BGM: Silence ♫




Oh. Right. Shit.








And so the world came to an end. I was unable to stop the plans of the Illuminati, even though my participation was key to their success. If only I hadn't allowed anyone on base, New York would be world champions at the close of all life on Earth. But as it is, the game will remain unfinished.

♪ BGM: Closer's Title ♫
Welp. Next time, we'll do this right and finish the game.