Home Run Derby

Home Run Derby puts you behind the batter and looks up the field at the pitcher, the ivy-covered wall and a hand-painted grandstand full of people. The man on the mound mixes fastballs, sinkers, curves that break late and changeups that float in slow, and every one of them grows as it comes, with its shadow running along the grass. One tap swings. Time it so the barrel meets the ball as it crosses the plate and you get the crack you are listening for.

Timing decides everything. Swing early and you pull it into left, swing late and you push it the other way, and a barrel sends it out on a line the fielders cannot reach. You choose your swing plane too — low for line drives, level for the sweet spot, high to lift one — and you slide your stance across the box to pull the ball or go the other way. Get the plane wrong for a pitch up at the letters and the best you will manage is a lazy fly that the centre fielder camps under.

Four ways to play. Home Run Derby gives you ten outs and counts anything that is not a dinger against you, with a bonus ball after five in a row. Around the Park paints targets on the scoreboard, the pennant and the hot-dog stand and gives you twelve swings at them. Streak asks how many hits you can string together while the arm keeps winding up. Pass & Play hands the bat around two to four batters, five outs each, and prints the card at the end. Three pitchers to face, distance and exit speed on every swing, a slow replay of the ones that leave the yard, and your bests saved in your browser. Touch, mouse and keyboard all work, portrait and landscape both fit, P pauses and M mutes.