Speaking of Road to the Show, the game defaults to making your running based on the left stick, with up generally meaning advance and down generally meaning retreat. However, in the above situation, you are allowed to steal anyway and won’t get into any trouble. In Road to the Show, you can be benched for deciding to steal on your own (that is, without a base coach’s signal). A successful hit! With everyone running, they’ll get another base or two that they wouldn’t have!
If there are two outs and a full count, anyone who would be forced to run on a hit should be ordered to steal. There is actually a single instance in baseball when a hit-and-run should be a guaranteed strategy. Late-inning hits-and-run are best, because if there are two outs already, it doesn’t matter whether a ball is caught in flight. It’s a risk/reward strategy that can greatly favor you if you time it right. The downside to performing a hit-and-run is that, if the ball is caught in flight on a line drive, the runners are pretty much guaranteed to be thrown out on the way back. Considering all the effort it takes to pull this off, just go for a contact swing rather than a power swing your fingers will be busy enough as it is. For example, even mediocre runners can score from first if they got a huge jump and were assisted with a deep hit.
Hits-and-run are useful for throwing off the defense because they’re not expecting the speed, and it might be enough to get a runner an extra base that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. If you want to perform a hit-and-run, it’s basically just ordering everyone to steal and you swinging anyway. If the situation is favorable, by all means go for it. Of course, the opposing catcher’s throwing speed and accuracy are factors also, so you may want to scout them out if you’re in a season game.
It’s best to avoid stealing at all with anyone whose speed is rated below 60 (unless the game isn’t really on the line), and it’s still not recommended unless their speed is over 75. Runners who steal need to have high speed ratings. You can specify a slide by pressing the right stick in any direction (for example, right stick upwards orders the runner to dive in head-first), but the runner will slide on his own anyway. Runners with better base running abilities and base running aggression ratings will be less prone to being fooled by pickoff attempts, especially deceptive pickoffs. Stealing bases doesn’t require timing on your part: if you give a steal order, the runners will be smart enough to run when the pitcher lifts his leg to commit to the pitch. For the most part, you’ll never have to increase leadoffs unless your runner has very high speed and base running ability, increasing your leadoff even a single step tends to guarantee you’ll be picked off. Tapping L1 increases their leadoffs, and tapping R1 decreases their leadoffs. Regardless of which set of controls you use, tapping L2 by itself will order all runners to steal. So, if you have a runner on first and want him to steal second, you’ll either hold L2 and press up on the stick, or hold L2 and press Triangle.
With classic controls, you hit L2 plus the face button of the base.
To steal a base with the default controls, you hit L2, plus move the left stick in the direction you want him to steal. The controls for stealing bases are practically identical. The player will be smart enough, of course, to round third in the process and not cut across the diamond. Hold Triangle (indicating “runner on second”), then press down on the D-pad (indicating “run home”). For example, say you have a runner on second, and you hit a shot down the foul line. Instead of selecting a runner with the left stick however, you hold the face button corresponding to what base he’s on, then press the D-pad to select what base you want to send him to. Like with default base running, you can use L1 and R1 to advance or retreat all runners, respectively. At first blush it appears that the controls are the same, but Classic controls actually give you far more control. Uses a combination of the face buttons and the D-pad. Mlb12theshow_-_06.jpgClassic base running