Hello, ladies and gents. Today we're covering the "Friendly Gesture" Achievement in MLB The Show 21. The video below will detail all you need to know, but I will also describe it in text here.
First, go to Settings and Settings again, then GamePlay.
Make sure the Gameplay Style under General is "Casual" and that the Pitching difficulty is Beginner and that Pinpoint Pitching is the Pitching Interface. Back out and apply those settings if you changed them.
Now, return to Settings and hit Sliders. These are the important ones.
Human Starter Stamina - all the way RIGHT
Human Pitcher Control/Consistency - all the way RIGHT
CPU Contact/Power/Timing/Solid Hits - all the way LEFT
CPU Foul Frequency - all the way RIGHT
Fastball/Offspeed Pitch Speed - doesn't matter much, but having these all the way RIGHT will make things go by a little faster
All Errors - default
Everything Else Below - all the way LEFT
Press A to save the sliders however you would like.
One last thing to consider is that you can also alter your pitcher to make them 99s in everything, but you shouldn't need to do that.
Start Exhibition mode and select the Away Team on the left. Find the San Francisco Giants and LB until they are the Flying Squirrels. Now return to the right side and use whatever team and pitcher you'd like. I recommend Shane Bieber (Cleveland), Gerrit Cole (New York Yankees) Jacob deGrom (New York Mets) or Max Scherzer (Washington).
Uniform and stadium don't matter, but make sure Fast Play is the Presentation setting. Pick your pitcher, and the lineup doesn't matter.
Being the Home Team means that if we fail, we can immediately restart and resume pitching to try again.
Pinpoint Pitching is as such. You will pick a pitch and then move your target to wherever you want to throw the ball, and then a circle is above the catcher's head with a white ball in it. It will move along a path, and there will be a light blue circle in the black circle. What you need to do is while holding the Left Analog in the proper pitch location still, use the Right Analog to trace the path at the same speed as the white ball moved, and then move your cursor down to the blue circle when the pitcher is about to release the ball. You can check the video if you want to see it in action.
We are playing against the worst hitters in the entire game, with one of the best pitchers with all of the sliders in our favor. They will offer very little resistance. However, don't be discouraged if you give up hits, walks or runs. ALL the achievement wants is for the 3 outs in an inning to be gotten via strikeout from Pinpoint pitching. So give up as many baserunners as you want. Let fly balls drop in. Give up walks if you need to. Just make sure your 3 outs come from strikeouts and you'll get the achievement.
And if you mess up, pausing and going to the Exit tab will allow you to instantly restart until you get it.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask me!