How’s your Pennant Race going?

[JayhawkerStL]

I thought it might be fun to share our struggle to increase our rating in an effort to get a chance to play the Legendary division.

I’m using a modified version of The Moose, but rolling as The Phog.



I’m starting pretty low. I qualified for the Senior League after my first full PR, but just got demoted back to Junior. I’m current 1633, while the Senior League required a 1648 this round. I should have stopped while I was ahead. I lost three straight last night and killed my rating.

I ended 12-14 for the week. I was at 11-6 at one point.

Last week was tough because my A+ middle reliever was injured. I ride him a lot because he is my best pitcher. I will try to get 2-3 from my starter, but with Charlie Best, I have a quick hook. But without him, I only have 2 relievers I trust.

This week my best power hitter, Rip Dingers is down, along with my #4 starter. The starter is worrisome, because I think he can still be selected to start. He still has enough rating to limp through three batters.

But my favorite player, Heronimus Jackson is juiced, and Nacho Crisp is locked in.

Looks like it is time to nail down power hitting. I finally got power pitching down enough to rely on it. But timing pitches while chasing a cursor is tough. But I’m at the bottom, so I may as well try now. I think it is what limits me against better teams.

[Fiddy]

I finished last week at 12-8 in a junior division. Good enough for second place!

I’m in a Senior division for this week and currently 6-2 and was in first place by a game and a half as of an hour ago.

I used the Hot Corners last week and now the Sirloins this week. Except I turned them into the Budloins Lol

I’m really enjoying myself with this game. I like that you always seem to play someone right at your skill level, which is fantastic.

[Jitter1127]

When I first started I went like 2-14 my ego dropped to 25 and my rating was like 770. Then I figured some stuff out won 2 divisions in a row and had my rating up to around 1950 w/ 45 ego. This go around I am lost again I have no idea what happened, but I can not score now. I am playing better people but I am having trouble getting lift on the ball and drilling line drives right at people. Im lucky to get 2-3 runs per game now. I did switch from platypi to sawteeth so not sure if that is it or not. Anyways now I am like 5-10 or something and my rating dropped back into the 1700s and ego back down to like 41. I did switch to using the power swing and I am playing a bit better but still not scoring well. I lose a lot of low scoring games

[JayhawkerStL]

This week was rough. My terrible finish last week continued into this week, as I started 1-4 and my rating continued to slide.

But I slowly picked up the pace, got to .500 and mostly stayed there. I finished with an 8-2 run, and an 11-8 record, which, if it holds for 49 more minutes will be good for second place.

Irene Fast and Nacho Crisp were my main producers, with 15 and 14 RBIs and 13 and 11 runs scored respectively.

On the mound, it was good to get Charlie Best back, as he was 6-3, no one else had more than 2 wins.

My final rating is 1681, but I had dropped into the mid 1400s for awhile. The rating and, more importantly, Ego changes over this week has been instructive. I’m starting to see how Ego is affecting me. Partly, as I said last week, once I get to 40 Ego, I need to start using power hitting. As my Ego goes up, the ability to HRs with contact swings gets tough.

I also came up with a tip. Saturdays are the last day of each Pennant Race. It’s also a great day to get more weak opponents. Once you lock in your place and a rating high enough to get promoted, you are better off not playing. To get ahead of me the third place guy needs to go 4-0 in the next 40+ minutes. The 4th place guy needs to go 5-0. To get to first place, I would have to go 8-0, as the first place guy is 12-1, and he stopped playing days ago.

Last week required a 1643 to get placed in the Senior division. So all playing now can do is lower my rating and drop me out of second. I can’t move up. And what I found was the only guys playing were ones trying to boost their score at the end, while the top teams sit. So I suspect day 7 will be good to rack up stats.

The only problem with online play is that it is hard to not get bored playing the AI after a bunch of PR games.

[Jitter1127]

I started this one off pretty good. Im sitting at 4-1 and the game I lost I blew a 4-1 early lead. One thing that was odd was that it did not let me pick my team again. I am stuck with the Sawteeth.....Im back into the 1800s with a 43 ego. I seem to get stuck around this point.

[JayhawkerStL]

Gonna finish this week in the Senior division.

The EGO ratings in this game are excellent, and the ay they use rating to create divisions and opponents is perfect. Once again, I’ve gotten my rating into the 1900s, only to fall back as I face tougher completion and my EGO increases the difficulty.

The start of the week was terrible. I started 2-7, and in the 7 losses I scored 7 runs, 5 of which came in one game. But I just keep grinding and looking for what I can do to improve. I’m 7-8 now, and have a good shot at second place, but I’m also running into better players.

Had a great game last night with the highest rated player I gave faced. He was well over 2000 and playing at 49 EGO to my 43. This the the kind of game I usually just get ripped, and I thought the quick 2-run homer he hit was a bad sign.

But I battled, and actually out him 11-6, but lost 3-2. I blew a few opportunities to score, but also needed a suicide squeeze to get my first. When a game is that tight, it’s pretty intense and fun, regardless of the outcome. Mostly, I feel like I might be ready to make a run at this level.

The number one player in the game is over 5200 now.

What I like is how much it feels like a minor league career. You play well, you earn a promotion, and then you struggle to adapt, get better, and hope for ani other promotion. And you get there be actually getting better, not crafting the perfect sliders to make exactly what you want happen.

Still can’t wait until they drop the custom Pennant Race so we can play the mode with a group of friends instead of just the randoms.

[JayhawkerStL]

Booted up my Steam version of the game for the first time this weekend, and it just really illustrates how great the EGO system is.

I started a new Pennant Race with the Sawteeth, a very balanced team, as opposed to my Moose team that is Power heavy. They have you play five games, and it started me at 50. They bounced me around a bit, but I was finally at EGO 61, playing a guy at EGO 55. He mercy ruled me in the 4th 13-0.

Not sure where my EGO is, because you don’t see it until you boot up a game, but my rating is 2167, which is less the 187 points they docked me for the last loss.

I’m currently 1911 on the Xbox, but I think playing at that higher EGO helped, because I got matched up with a guy rated over 2100, and really dominated after giving up a two-run homer in the first, winning 5-3. Not sure I pull that off before playing on the PC.

I will say I can play much better than the 13-0 drubbing I took. A lot of runs came on misplayed flyballs that I don’t think happens if I had progressed to that high of an EGO slowly. It was kind of cool really seeing and feeling the difficulty work so well.

Still hoping to make a run to semi-pro, but I have a long ways to go. Semi-pro starts at around 2650. Will need to be in the 4000s to get to All-Star and above.