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OC Register: Angels’ Ty Buttrey working to improve his video game skills for MLB The Show tourney


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Ty Buttrey’s quarantine has become much busier lately.

Since last week, Buttrey has split his time between prepping for real baseball and virtual baseball. Buttrey is the Angels’ participant in an MLB The Show tournament organized by Major League Baseball.

“My wife isn’t too happy with it,” Buttrey said via conference call on Tuesday. “I’ve taken some time away from our Netflix shows, but I’ve got to practice this game. It’s been on my mind right now.”

Buttrey lost three of the first four games he’s played, which prompted him to get some help for noted gamer Ryan Wilcox, who is an Angels fan. Known online as McGunski, the 23-year-old Wilcox has more than 20,000 followers on his Twitch channel and more than 40,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.

Although Wilcox beat him 18-0 in a three-inning scrimmage, Buttrey said he’s improving.

“It was crazy the things I learned last night,” Buttrey said. “Even though it’s kind of a joke and it’s a video game, I want to win this.”

The player who wins the tournament will earn a $25,000 donation in his name to the local Boys and Girls Club in his community.

Buttrey said he has been spending his afternoons and evenings practicing at the video game after full mornings of throwing and working out in the gym to be ready whenever baseball resumes.

“If it does start in a month, I want to be prepared,” he said. “I don’t want to be coming in and getting hurt or losing my job to someone who was working out hard.”

Buttrey, who is living in the Tampa area, said he’s been on a more regular workout routine during the quarantine than even in a normal offseason, because there aren’t any of the normal distractions like family visits or travel.

He thinks he may even have improved based on some of the ways he’s conditioning.

“Today I threw a 20-pitch bullpen,” Buttrey said. “I was really feeling comfortable with my mechanics. Last year that was something I felt kind of inconsistent with in the middle of the year.”

Like all players, though, Buttrey has no idea when he’ll be able to put all of this to use on the baseball field. The sport remains in an indefinite shutdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although there have been ideas floated for getting the games to return, perhaps by playing in empty stadiums in spring training parks in Arizona and Florida, Buttrey said he’s skeptical of anything that would quarantine players without their families.

“We’ve got to do what’s right, but we have to keep ourselves healthy and we’ve got to be with our families,” he said. “That’s really important.”

Buttrey said he would go so far as to play in Japan or Taiwan if it was deemed safe and families could join the players.

“I think that would be awesome,” he said. “I would love to go to Japan.”

 

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