Pitching Tactics

Challenge hitter

Select Challenge hitter to have your pitcher challenge the batter with his best pitches. In most cases, it is the best way to get the batter out.

Pitch around hitter

Select Pitch around hitter to instruct your pitcher to be careful to avoid giving the batter a pitch that he can hit for power. As a result, the batter will hit fewer doubles, triples, and home runs, but will allow more walks and get fewer strikeouts than when he challenges the hitter. Of course, since your pitcher is human, the batter may still get a great pitch to hit. This strategy should be used only in certain situations, such as when a dangerous hitter is at the plate with first base open. Using this strategy too often will cause you to give up more runs than if you challenge most hitters, because many more runners will get on base.

Intentional walk

Select Intentional walk to intentionally give a walk to the hitter. You may want to use this strategy when the batter is very dangerous, or when you want to set up for a double play or a force play at home.

Pitch out

Select Pitch out to throw a fastball wide of the plate and give your catcher the best possible chance to throw out a runner who might be attempting to steal on this pitch. This option is not available when the bases are empty or when there are three balls on the hitter.

Pickoff throw (Shift-123)

Select Pickoff throw to have the pitcher throw to a base in an attempt to catch the runner off guard. This option is not available when the bases are empty.

If you click on this button with only one runner on base, DMB assumes the pickoff throw should go to that base. If there are two or more runners, DMB pops up another series of buttons to allow you to choose the base you want to throw to.

This second series of buttons is fine if you are playing alone, but if you are playing with another person, it gives away the fact that you want to make a pickoff throw somewhere. So, to maintain secrecy, DMB includes a special keystroke sequence that you can use to bypass this menu. Hold down the shift key and press 1, 2 or 3 to throw to first, second, or third, respectively.

Quick 1-1-1 or Quick 1-1

The most common sequence of commands is Challenge the hitter, Normal defense, and Swing away. So DMB offers you a quick way to choose these sequences when you are playing alone or playing against the computer manager.

If both managers are set to Human, select Quick 1-1-1 to make these choices and have DMB immediately begin generating the result of the play. If the DMB computer manager is handling the offensive team, this command reads Quick 1-1 and causes you to challenge the hitter with the infield at normal depth. The computer manager then makes a decision for the offense.