MLB The Show: World War K – Three Blights in August

Start from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: Can’t Get Fooled Again

Winning is hard, but apparently losing is even harder. Pat Burrell and the Royals had set out to accomplish something far more difficult than sealing the deal on a solid division: blowing it in dramatic fashion. In the past, the Kansas City Royals had made losing games look simple, but in 2014 they were a team of destiny. Not only did they have the general momentum of the 2014-prime timeline on their side, but the improvements made by Pat Burrell and Strike-O-Matic gave them an extra push that was hard to undo. Trading the closer and wrecking the up-the-middle defense by giving starting jobs to Brad Miller, Miguel Sano, and Jesus Montero should have been enough… But was it?

The problem with relying on a poor defense to sink the Royals should have been clear: the team’s three best pitchers were strikeout specialists. Strike-O-Matic, Carlos Martinez, and Kyle Zimmer all had K/9 rates over 8.00, which limited the amount of damage the terrible up-the-middle combination could do to them. Even Jesus Montero was capable of catching a fastball, and Sano/Miller simply didn’t get enough chances to let fieldable balls get away. On the offensive side, they were even barely a step down from the players they were replacing. Miller played about as well as Escobar had, and while Sal Perez was a much better hitter than Jesus Montero, his 2014 numbers simply hadn’t borne that out. And as for Miguel Sano, who should have been completely overmatched in MLB? Well…

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Posted by

Malcolm Pierce

Posted on

November 9, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

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MLB The Show – World War K: You Can’t Get Fooled Again

Start from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: Trust The Plot Twist

At the end of July 2014, emergency repairs initiated by Strike-O-Matic’s internal systems revealed the terrible truth of his mission from the future. He had not been sent back in time to help the Kansas City Royals get to the World Series. In fact, he had been sent back to prevent Kansas City from taking the pennant. This compelled Pat Burrell into taking desperate measures, making dramatic changes to the roster. They wanted the team to collapse in 2014, but without ruining the team’s public image or hopes for future seasons.

With this in mind, Burrell attempted to recruit the services of blogger Dave Cameron, but accidentally ended up retaining the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. It was a mistake anyone could make, but particularly likely when the person put in charge of the deal was Eric Hosmer.

With David Cameron’s help, Pat Burrell retooled the team, trading a number of significant pieces from the ML roster. But more importantly, the team would be handicapped by some rather lineup decisions suggested by PM David Cameron after reading the work of blogger Dave Cameron. The team now looked something like this:

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Posted by

Malcolm Pierce

Posted on

October 31, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

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MLB The Show – World War K: Trust The Plot Twist

Start from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: All Stars and aWARs

As July came to a close, everything was going according to plan for the alt-2014 Royals. Following the all-star break, the team went on a dramatic winning streak, pulling well ahead of the AL Central. The core of the offense–Hosmer, Burrell, Holliday, and Gordon–were finally firing on all cylinders. Meanwhile, Strike-O-Matic, Carlos Martinez, Kyle Zimmer, and Bartolo Colon routinely provided quality starts and saved the shaky bullpen from overexposure. It was starting to look like the Royals wouldn’t have any problem cruising to the playoffs.

It seemed as though Strike-O-Matic and Pat Burrell didn’t have much to worry about as the trade deadline approached. But then one morning, shortly before a press conference to honor him for yet another MLB Rookie of the Week award, Strike-O-Matic injured himself by trying to iron his shirt while he was wearing it. Of course, he was a machine, so this wasn’t really a problem. He just needed to repair the damage to his artificial skin and reboot. But in the process of restarting his internal computer, Strike-O-Matic regained all of the memories he had lost during the time travel process.

After all, Strike-O-Matic had been sent back from the post-apocalyptic future of 2099 to work with Mike Trout and the Angels to save baseball. He had only recruited Pat Burrell and joined the Royals after a memory malfunction. No one assumed this was a problem, since it shouldn’t have mattered which team Strike-O-Matic helped to win, as long as it both changed history and stopped the robot masters. But when Strike-O-Matic’s internal computer rebooted, he remembered a terrible truth.

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