OOTP Season Sim Game 56: Rays beat Jays

There was a bit of Jays news. Anthony Alford cleared waivers and has been assigned to Buffalo.

Blue Jays 3 Rays 4

We’ve had a few late game comebacks. Today we lost when the Rays had the late game comeback.

Going into the eighth inning, the Jays were up 3-2. Brian Moran, who got the last two outs of the seventh, started the inning and gave up a walk to Nate Lowe. In came Rafael Dolis. Dolis got a strikeout then Ji-Man Chio put down a sac bunt, moving the tying run to second base. Willy Adams walked and that was it for Dolis.

Jordan Romano came in and gave up a 2-run double to Kevan Smith to give the Rays the lead.

We had another good start from Nate Pearson. He went 5 innings, allowed 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 unearned run with 3 strikeouts. His ERA drops to 2.74. The unearned run came in the second inning. Cavan Biggio threw wide of first base on what should have been an easy ground out. Ji-Man Choi reached second on the play. He moved to third on a ground out and scored on a sac fly.

The Rays got another run in the sixth. Anthony Bass hit Hunter Renfroe to start the inning. Lowe followed with a single, driving Renfroe to third. And he scored on a single from Choi.

We didn’t do much on offense, just 5 hits.

We scored:

• 2 in the second: Randal Grichuk had a 1-out single. Travis Shaw reached on a Austin Meadows error, booting a line drive to left, giving us runners on second and third. Those runners scored on a Teoscar Hernandez ground out and a Reese McGuire single. Teoscar doesn’t have a hit in his 3 games back from Buffalo.
• 1 in the third: Gurriel singled. He was replaced at first on a fielder’s choice ground out by Vladimir Guerrero. Vlad went to third on a Bo Bichette double and scored on a Rowdy Tellez ground out.

Rays starter Blake Snell went 7 innings, allowing the 5 hits and 3 runs. Relievers Oliver Drake and Nick Anderson pitched a scoreless eight and ninth respectively.

JoD for Pearson. Can share a Suckage award to the batting lineup.

We’ve dropped into a first place tie again.

The Jays finish out the month of May with a 4-game, 3-day series in Baltimore. They have a double-header tomorrow, making up a rainout back in April. It looks like Tanner Roark and Matt Shoemaker will be starting for the Jays, who may want to make a couple of roster moves to get them some rested arms for the pen. The good news is that Hyun-Jin Ryu will be back from the IL after the series. The Orioles should have John Means (2-3, 3.90 in 11 starts) going in one of the games and likely they will use Tyler Herb as an opener in the other game. Their bullpen looks better rested than the Jays.