Moose has been probably the only bright side to this very grim season, he's 17 - 7 with a 3.39 ERA and has fewer walks than he has starts. He deserves to win 20, hes been one of the best for a very long time.

                              
    While the Yanks are sucking more and more by the minute, I figured I'd give our favorite current baseball game a review. Last year we played MLB 2K7 until our eyes bled, which was a decent game but had many flaws. In March when these two came out I picked up 2k8 instead of the show - wrong decision.  2K8 sucked so bad that my brother spent 400 dollars on a PS3 just to play The Show.

   Let me say that for the most part, the gameplay is pretty smooth.  My favorite baseball game franchise was EA Sports' MVP baseball, which I still play to this day.  This is as close as it gets to MVP's fluid gameplay, but there are some flaws that need to be addressed. By far the most aggravating thing about the show is throwing strikes and the inconsistent umpiring. Using the pitching interface that is completely ripped off from MVP, you can set up a pitch perfectly and it will fly out of the strike zone.  This is infuriating - several controllers are now FUBAR because of this bullshit.  Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the umpires have wildly inconsistent strike zones.  There is a setting to change this but it does absolutely nothing.  These guys have You can lay a fast ball right down the pipe and magically its not a strike. I've tried adjusting settings as much as possible but nothing seems to fix it.

There are some fielding glitches as well. Some times a slow, very routine, ground ball will go right through an infielder legs, sometimes he'll have his glove down and sometimes he doesn't. Another complaint I have is that none of the fielders have a sense of urgency. You'll have some like Ichiro or Jose Reyes trying to beat out a ground ball against you and your infielder will double tap the ball in his like like its Manny walking to first, This happens much more than it should and the runner will be safe probably 90% of the time when this happens. The outfielders have a similar problem, if theres a runner trying to score from second, the outfielders take their precious time getting the ball back into the infield.

 We've been pretty negative thus far, but I can assure you this is a pretty good game - there's alot to like about The Show. In MLB 2k7 we could easily strike out 20 - 25 batters a game, this is not the case in the show.  It's very difficult to strike out more than a batter per inning, and there's a tremendous leaning curve to pitching and hitting.  Timing is everything, and the pitching mechanics are tremendously realistic.  For example, curveballs break less and less the farther you aim them up in the zone and become more hittable once they're closer to the hitter's eye level.  Pitching success relies heavily on changing the hitter's eye level.  I tend to use fastballs up and in, then throw changeups and curveballs low and away from the hitter.   The hitting mechanics are similar, showing a tremendous baseball AI.
    

         

    Where The Show really shines is the variety of the game modes.  The game has a mode for almost anything you want to do.  My brother's personal favorite is Road To The Show. You create a player and select what team you want to be on and you work your way through the minor leagues building up your attributes and eventually getting called up to the bigs. It takes a while to get skills where you want them to be but this mode is pretty is very fulfilling.  The game will give you objectives to complete and you get points for completing them. You then use the earned points to build up your skills. My only complaint is that the load times between each objective can get annoying.  The Franchise mode is also extremely deep and done almost as well as RTTS and allows you to build your team from the ground up.  You control all of the minor league teams, and hire scouts to find more prospects to sign or trade. You can raise ticket and food pricing for your stadium. The list goes on, but you get the idea..

          

 
      Now on to the graphics. The texturing on the uniforms and the faces of the players is exceptionally well done. You can see the sweat on their faces which is pretty cool. The jerseys move with the wind and the players movement and doesn't look stiff as it did in 2k7.  Almost all of the players wind ups and batting stances are in the game, but some really need to be redone.  You see this alot with young sports franchises, as it takes several iterations to polish all the player movements.  As good as the actual players look, the stadiums and the crowd are a little sub-par. The 2-D card board cut out crowd jumping up and down looks pretty dumb and will hopefully be improved next year. The frame rate drops a bit during day games, because of how ridiculous the shading details are. For some reason, the game was designed for 720p and not 1080i. So if you have HDTV's like we do and you set it on 1080i or 1080p the frame-rate will be considerably lower. 

        

   
    Lastly, on to the sound. First off i want to thank Sony for not have John Miller and Joe Morgan as the announcers. That being said, I think any announcers for any sports game get annoying after a while, but The Show does a good job of keeping the repetition to a minimum. All of the bat sounds are pretty spot on, and well as the ball hissing on its way to the plate and the glove sounds. I like the crowd noise alot, as it gives you a real feel for the game.

       While this game is no MVP baseball, its still a very solid baseball that's worth buying and playing. We

                                         8.5 out of 10
   

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, we've been pretty busy. For the first time in ages, the Yankees have swept an actual Major League team. While the starting pitching wasn't anything to brag about, the bullpen was lights out allowing 2 runs in 12 innings of work. The most important thing about this series was the offense. I dont know how or why, but they seemed to wake up. For the first time in a while, hitting with RISP wasn't a problem for them, with a few very clutch hits were thrown in.  Oh, yea, I forgot, Kevin Millar was sporting a Hitler mustache yesterday.  Enjoy.

Tomorrow brings the series that will arguably make or break the season. They're 5.0 games back of Boston in the Wildcard standings with under 50 games to play - a huge deficit to overcome. While I'm not so sure about Sidney Ponson's Malt Liquor Ice Cream, I have alot of confidence that Moose and Pettite can get the job done.

That loss hurt more than a kick in the nuts. For the first seven innings of the game, the offense was completely useless. Rasner pitched a pretty good game but it fell apart after he left in the 7th with two runners on. The game got out of hand when Damaso Marte entered, allowing four runs to score. Enter the eighth inning, the Yankees score two runs and close the gap to 6 - 3. Top of the ninth, Mariao Rivera enters the game. Yet again in a non-save situation Mo surrenders a run. The Yanks mount a very impressive comeback in the bottum of the ninth, they end up with the tieing run on 2nd with two outs and Betemit coming to the plate. Any one watching this game saw the strike out that was going to end the game coming. As bad as Willy's been, hes been even worse from the right side. Giving Sexson a shot against the lefty would of probably given you a little bit of a better chance to win the game, but probably not much. Wilson strikes out and game over. Rasner recieved the loss, but Mariano deserves it. This is a tough loss to swollow, lets see how the Yanks try to rebound from it.

With the recent winning streak the Yankees have forced themselves right back into the playoff hunt. The Rays are 3-7 in their last 10 games and the Redsox utter dominance on the road (24-32) has let the Yanks gain some considerable ground. If the Yanks want to make a run, their going to need some help at the bottom of the rotation. They won't make the playoffs with Rasner and Ponson pitching 2 of every 5 games. Ponson doesn't seem to feel like pitching until theres at least 2 men on, and hes not going to keep getting out of those situations. In Rasners last 5 starts hes had a 5.96 ERA and allowed 50 baserunners in 30.2 innings, awsome. The Yankees should NOT make a trade. They have good enough pitching in the minors to fill the gaps. IPK could come up from AAA and but much more effective than he was earlier in the season, McCutchen is also another solution. Lets not forget Phil Hughes is coming back from his injury soon but he may end up spending the rest of the season in the minors. It will be interesting to see how the Yankees fill the gaps in the rotation, I hope it wont be too late.

Coincidence or Fate? - Every time the immortal Steve Phillips rambles some incoherent piece of garbage about baseball, the exact opposite happens. Following the All-Star game Mr.Phillips says the Yanks will not make the playoffs this year, which he said last year as well. Apparently thats all the Yanks needed to get back in it, Steve Phillips. Phillips also says the Yankees need a much better bullpen, I guess stats are nonsense. Over the last 20 games the bullpen has had a 1.60 ERA and Batters are hitting .258 against them. Steve, your wrong.

13-6 3.26 ERA - FTW

The Yankees beat the Jays today 9 - 4, but the win was soon soured. Bobby Murcer, 62, lost his battle with cancer. Its a sad day for all Yankee fans. We never knew Bobby as a player, but he was a fantastic broadcaster and person. Our thoughts go out to the Murcer family.

Sidney Ponson's Malt Liquor Ice Cream