Pitch to contact whenever possible, walk the occasional batter, and save the punch-outs for getting out of jams. Do that from the first playable game onward, because if you strike a bunch of dudes out in the first few games, avoiding VS Lefty 4 and Gd Low Pitch will be an uphill battle the rest of the way. The three things that impact coach/scout eval are innings pitched, K's and runs allowed. As long as you don't give up any runs, those hits and walks won't hurt you.

I only wish they would get pitcher roles right, I made a closer and he had to pitch in starting roles...

Sure, but you can understand why that wouldn't work. Save situations are unpredictable. Plus, one inning's worth of action at the end of the game would prevent you from controlling your pitcher for more than an one or two outs per game, and only during games in which he didn't simulate a perfect inning.

Ugh. Based on the discovery about Timely Whiff in the other thread, I'm starting to think that you get VS LH Batter 4 by striking out a certain number of lefties over the course of Success Mode. I'm on the first game of year two, and I can't seem to avoid getting it in this game. If I could manually pitch to every lefty, I would, but... I might just have to start over and avoid the Ks at all costs next time.