The 2025 ALCS was an all-timer
I’ve been playing as the Cleveland Guardians starting in 2024 in Out of the Park Baseball 25 lately. They’re a fun team to choose since they’re already a plausible playoff team, but they have the longest World Series drought, and they choose first overall in the 2024 MLB draft, so you get Charlie Condon or whoever else you’d prefer for free.
I’ve never had a series as satisfying as the 2025 ALCS, against the Orioles. The Guardians fell behind 3-0, then managed to pick up three wins in a row to force Game 7.
I played out each at-bat of Game 7, and it was a rollercoaster. The Guardians took a three-run lead against Orioles ace Grayson Rodriguez in the top of the first, only to lose the whole lead and more in the bottom of the inning. Both starters would be out of the game in the third inning, setting up a battle of two tired bullpens.
Despite all the great young Orioles hitters, Hunter Renfroe of all people was the game’s best player, hitting two home runs including one late to make it a two-run lead for the Orioles in the ninth, with Felix Bautista on the mound. Hope was pretty well gone.
Kyle Manzardo and Josh Naylor managed to get on base against Bautista, whose pitch count was rising as he was in his second inning of work. But the young rookie Kahlil Watson struck out. Only one out left. Bo Naylor came in to pinch hit for Christian Vazquez. With a 103.1 MPH groundball, he made magic happen:
Naylor comes all the way around from first to make it a tie game in Baltimore.
Exhaustingly, the game would go on from there. Clase and Aleman failed to hold the lead in the bottom of the ninth. But eventually a Steven Kwan sac fly in the 11th inning would be enough for the Game 7 win and a trip to the World Series.
The Guardians would lose in six games to the juggernaut Reds in the World Series, so the curse continues. But with #1 overall pick Charlie Condon recovered from a shoulder issue for 2026, things are looking up for the future.
MLB The Show’s been sued
Sony Interactive has been sued over trademark infringement for “Future Star Series,” based on the phrase’s use in the MLB The Show Diamond Dynasty mode. Program 15 is the suing party, a player development organization who apparently used and trademarked the phrase Future Star Series.
I’m no expert, but a trademark search site seems to show the registration here. On that page a March 2024 document is linked where the trademark office has asked for much more info and detail, with the threat of the trademark being abandoned if an answer isn’t received soon.
The Show uses the phrasing from their partnership with Topps. Topps has used the Future Stars branding since the 1980s.
New Encyclopedia Pages
This week I focused on finishing up pages for the full R.B.I. Baseball series and its MLBAM reboot. You can see them all on the new series page here:
Next up is making a similar overview page for the Pawapuro series with articles for each game. It’s a big task since that’s the longest baseball series out there, with at least two games per year for a big chunk of time.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine (iOS) Gameplay – After Doki Doki Pretty League I thought I had played the only series of high school girls’ manager games. How wrong I was. This franchise started as the mobile game here, then ran the gamut with anime, manga, and light novel adaptations afterwards.
- The Bigs 2 (Wii) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – These games have aged pretty well, compared to the rest of the explosion of 2K-published games from the same time.
- R.B.I. Baseball 3 (Genesis) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – I thought the CPU defense was bad in the original R.B.I. Baseball, but somehow it only went backwards from there.
- Super R.B.I. Baseball (SNES) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – This game from a million years later doesn’t look noticeably better, but at least the CPU defense isn’t quite as big a mess.