Holy cow!  Posts on back-to-back days?  Who abducted the “Middle-Aged-Gamer” and took over his blog?!

That’s what’s great about this game, though – it inspires me.  It’s way too early for me to sing its praises or denounce it, but the bottom line is, I look forward to playing it whenever I get a chance.

I spent more time with “My Player” today.  My guy is a closer.  And, just when I thought it was getting too easy, the game taught me a lesson.  I hadn’t given up a run in my first few outings.  As I’ve been ascending the bullpen ladder in AA ball, I’ve been brought into more and more challenging situations.  Today, I came in with my team down by one, the bases loaded, and nobody out.  Of course, I struck out the first two batters, feeling like I will strike out the side and that I might need to bump up to All-Star difficulty level.  And then, it happened.  One hit leads to another and another, followed by a wild pitch and a hit batsmen.  All of the sudden, I lost my “composure.”  The cursor was bouncing all over the place!  I walked another batter and gave up another hit.  It was a 7 run inning – 4 of them my fault.  And, you know what, I absolutely loved it!

All in all, my guy’s still doing pretty well.  I’m up to set-up man now, with 4 saves in 5 opportunities.  In 11 IP, I’ve given up 14 hits, walked 2 (unintentionally), and struck out 8.  My ERA is in the 3′s.  With my skill improvements, I’m starting to get noticed by the big club.  I’m almost through July now – it goes pretty fast!

I had one funny glitch yesterday…  I went to substitute for my pitcher, and my pitcher literally disappeared.  What was funny is that the ball didn’t – it just hung there and then moved around as if my pitcher was carrying it.  As soon as my new pitcher arrived at the mound, his image reappeared and everything looked normal.  I can handle glitches that don’t affect the gameplay, like that one.

Lastly, I did play around with Home Run Derby mode, too, today.  What’s a bit concerning is that I couldn’t seem to hit one out of the park when I tried to pull the ball.  All my HR’s when to center of left-center field (from a LH batter).  It could just be my skill level at this point, but I hope there’s no goofy bug like that in the game.  If I recall, one of the early versions of MVP baseball had some goofy LH batter home run glitch.  Stuff like that definitely COULD bother me…

More to come!