For MLB The Show eSport fans, August 28th, 2023 is a date few will forget. Not only did Zazzi defeat Bayko to win the Tampa Bay Rays Sunburst Invitational, but he did so in the first-ever LAN event in MLB The Show eSport history. It was an amazing series and an amazing production put on by the Tampa Bay Rays. It was a step forward for this eSport.
Zazzi Wins Historic $10,000 Tampa Bay Rays MLB The Show 23 Tournament
How Did We Get Here?
The Sunburst Invitational was an MLB The Show 23 tournament organized by the Tampa Bay Rays as part of the organization’s 25th anniversary celebration. The competition took place over the summer and included two qualifying tournaments and the live LAN finale. In this tournament, players were only allowed to use the Tampa Bay Rays and play at Tropicana Field. All tournament games were played 9-inning games on Legend difficulty.
Bayko was the first competitor to secure his spot in the live event. He went undefeated in the first qualifying tournament, including beating GOATRP in a best-of-three final. Zazzi was knocked out in the first qualifier but went on a great run in the second qualifier to make his way to the LAN event.
The finals were held at Full Sail University in Orlando. This was the first-ever LAN event for a major MLB The Show 23 tournament. The finale featured a gorgeous stage, a live audience, amazing graphics and lighting, and commentary by MLB The Show community members Austin Thune (@Thuuuuney) and Rich Veit(@ScuffyMcGeeTV).
Game 1
Game 1 got underway and Zazzi wasted no time. After getting back-to-back hits to start things off, a Randy Arozarena single and Isaac Paredes double pushed across three runs for Zazzi to have him up after the top of the 1st.
Bayko would respond with a string of hits of his own in the bottom of the 2nd. Bayko put up four runs in the inning, including a 2-run Luke Raley double, to take a slim 4-3 lead. He would add two more runs in the 6th to make it 6-3.
A Brandon Lowe base hit in the 7th for Zazzi would cut the lead to two. Zazzi would later load the bases with only one out in the 7th. However, a couple of ground ball outs would let Bayko maintain his two-run lead. Bayko made Zazzi pay for stranding those runners with a two-run Jose Siri home run. After adding an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th, Bayko was just three outs away from taking Game 1.
Zazzi wouldn’t go away easily though. He was able to put together a few hits to have the bases loaded yet again with only one out. Josh Lowe hit a fly ball to center that wasn’t quite deep enough to score a run. Harold Ramirez stepped up as the final hope for Zazzi. A sinker up and in got Zazzi to ground out to end the game. Bayko remained undefeated in the tournament by winning Game 1.
Game 2
Like Game 1, Game 2 started the scoring early. An Arozarena single scored the first run of the game for Zazzi in the bottom of the 1st. Zazzi followed it up with a solo shot from Josh Lowe in the 2nd and 4 runs in the 3rd to take a commanding 6-0 lead.
Finally, in the 7th inning, with the score now 9-0, Rene Pinto roped one to the left field wall, allowing a run to score to make it 10-0. This triggered the mercy rule, handing Game 2 to Zazzi. Bayko just couldn’t seem to string together hits in this one. Zazzi’s starting pitcher, Zach Eflin, pitched a complete game shutout while giving up only six hits. The series was now tied going into the winner-take-all Game 3.
Game 3
Zazzi’s momentum from Game 2 carried over to Game 3. Zazzi put up three runs in the top of the 1st to take a 3-0 lead. The next few innings were quiet. That is until Zazzi added three more runs in the 5th. Two more runs in the 6th to make it 8-0. Bayko was in danger of getting mercy ruled in back-to-back games.
However, Bayko refused to stop fighting. A three-run home run from Brandon Lowe in the bottom of the 6th put Bayko on the board to cut the lead to five. Bayko added another run thanks to an Arozarena sacrifice fly to make the score 8-4 going into the final three innings.
This scoring snapped a streak of 14 straight scoreless innings for Zazzi. When asked about his pitching performance in Games 2 and 3, he said, “As a player in that situation, you have to expect it to go 3 games. So doing a bullpen game in the first game allowed me to have the pitchers I was confident in to end it out the last 2. I think I was much more comfortable pitching with guys like Eflin and Civale and knew my ways to get him to chase the pitches I wanted to throw and was able to execute the corners much easier.”
Zazzi would add an insurance run in the top of the 7th off a Jose Siri solo home run. Bayko answered with a Josh Lowe double and Randy Arozarena single that scored two runs in the bottom of the 8th. Zazzi’s lead was cut to just three.
With the championship on the line, a 3-run homer from Jose Siri in the top of the 9th, his second homer of the game, put Zazzi up 12-6 and just three outs from glory. Bayko came out with a Luke Raley home run to lead off the bottom of the 9th. However, the next three hitters would fly out to center field. Zazzi won Game 3 12-7 and took the title of Sunburst Invitational Champion!
A Historic Win
This win solidifies Zazzi as one of the best MLB The Show 23 players in the world, and possibly ever. Before this tournament, Zazzi was a finalist in last year’s MLB The Show 22 Summer Circuit. Zazzi then won the MLB The Show 22 Fall Circuit. He has been on a hot streak that he is sure to want to continue. When asked what winning this tournament meant to him, Zazzi said: “Just being able to say I was a part of it is enough happiness to last me a lifetime, but to say I won it and will forever be remembered as the first person to ever WIN an MLB The Show LAN tournament is something that will be forever humbling for me and truly show my impact on the game will live on for a long time.”
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