MLB The Show 18: How to Hit, Tips and Tricks

How to Hit in MLB The Show 18

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Hitting is obviously one of the fundamental skills of baseball. Without it, you, well… wouldn’t win any games. Historically in MLB The Show 18, hitting has been significantly harder to master than pitching. Because unlike pitching, which is largely dependent on your ability to line up a pitch and mix up types, hitting requires patience to be successful at the highest levels. If you swing at everything, you’re not going to do well at the highest difficulties or against highly skilled opponents.

In order to hit successfully in MLB The Show 18, you need to first pick a hitting interface that you like playing. There are a few options: zone, directional, and pure analog. At the end of the day, the best option is whatever you do best with it.

That said, we recommend using zone with a hitting view of the strike zone. With this combination, all you need to do is use the left analog stick to control the reticle/PCI and line it up with the incoming pitch so that the ball is dead center of the reticle in order to get the best possible contact.

Timing is also incredibly important, and you’ll need to make sure that you’re hitting X at just the right moment. There’s no quick fix for improving your timing other than just practice. The strike zone view will give you the clearest look at the incoming pitch, which will help with getting used to the movement of various pitches and the speed they usually come in at.

When you’re online (and this applies offline as well), the best things you can do to improve your hitting is to be patient and take a few pitches and get a sense of your opponent’s pattern.  Do they go fastball into a change-up? Or do they like to strike you out with curveballs? Once you get a sense of what your opponent is throwing, you’ll be able to identify it coming out of their hand quicker and take the appropriate actions. A good strategy for learning how to be patient is to take the first pitch no matter what. Even if it’s a strike, you can learn how they follow up when they think you’re going to swing at every pitch. If it’s a ball, great, you’re ahead and can possibly get a better pitch to swing it at 1-0.

If you know they will throw you a slider outside when ahead in the count,  you can watch that pitch as it’s coming in. You can get yourself ready to crush that high and tight fastball on full counts. The AI is less predictable, and a good human player will try and not be easily guessed, but being patient and watching pitches to get yourself in favorable counts is key to hitting well in MLB The Show 18.

That does it for how to hit in MLB The Show 18. Best of luck practicing!


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Author
Ed McGlone
Ed McGlone was with Twinfinite from 2014 to 2022. Playing games since 1991, Ed loved writing about RPGs, MMOs, sports games and shooters.