OOTP Season Sim Game 76: Jays beat Pirates

I have a get a quiet day soon so I can catch up on this. This is Saturday’s game. Today, my oldest boy and I went golfing. I haven’t golfed since last year, and I played like it. Actually, the front nine was pretty good, I had a couple of pars in a row. The back nine at this course was much harder than the front nine, fairways were much narrower. And when you golf like I do, you want wide fairways. I don’t think I go there again.

Blue Jays 3 Pirates 2

We finally got a decent start out of Chase Anderson. He went 5.2, allowed 4 hits, 1 home run, 2 earned, 2 walks with 2 strikeouts. His 53 Game Score was his best this season by far.

He gave up a run in the first (Bryan Reynolds singled and scored on a Gregory Polanco double) and a run in the second (Alex Avila hit a home run).

Anderson’s ERA dropped from 8.12, going into the game, to 7.65, leaving the game.

And our bullpen pitched scoreless 3.1 innings:

• Wilmer Font went 1.1, allowing a walk and getting 3 strikeouts. He got the win, making him 6-1, enjoying the role of vulture.
• Rafael Dolis pitched an inning, giving up a hit.
• Ken Giles pitched the ninth, getting 2 strikeouts and his 13th save.

On offense, we had 11 hits (including 2 home runs) so we really should have scored more than 3 runs.

Lourdes Gurriel had 3 hits, Cavan Biggio and Teoscar Hernandez had 2 each.

We scored all three runs in the eighth inning:

• Pirates starter Joe Musgrove was still in the game. Entering the inning, he had allowed 8 hits, but no runs. To start the inning, Rowdy Tellez, pinching hitting for Wilmer Font (NL ball is so much fun), hit a home run.
• Biggio singled (he finally has his BA up to .200!).
• The Pirates brought in Keone Kela. After a Lourdes Gurriel ground out, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered, to give a blown save to Kela.

After the game, Vlad, through a translator, told reporters that he was “just looking for a pitch it could hit hard and I got it”.

Jays of the Day are Vlad, Rowdy, Font, Dolis, Giles and Lourdes.

The Jays are 44-33 now.

Sunday’s game will have Matt Shoemaker (2-7, 8.06 in 16 starts) hoping to make his best start of the season and give the Jays a series win. The Pirates have Chris Stratton (3-5, 4.00 in 14 starts) scheduled.