OOTP 2020 Recaps

OOTP Season Sim Game 78: Shaw homers, Jays beat Brewers

By Tom Dakers@bluebirdbanter Jun 25, 2020, 12:22am EDT

MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers at Milwaukee Brewers

I know I’m not going to catch up just doing one recap a day, but there was a fair bit of news today, so just one today. This is Monday’s game, the first of 3 against the Brewers.

Blue Jays 5 Brewers 3

It is nice to have Hyun-Jin Ryu back from the IL. Ryu didn’t go deep into the game, he went 5.1 innings, allowed 4 hits, 1 earned, 1 walk with 2 strikeouts. His control has been amazing. He’s made 13 starts and has only handed out 5 free passes. Roy Halladay celebrated seasons when he had fewer walks than starts, but he never had a season with more than double the starts as walks. In real life, last year Ryu had 29 starts and just 24 walks.

We have been getting some good work from the bullpen lately. Today, not quite as much:

Dany Jimenez went 1.2 innings without allowing a base runner. He came in with 1 out in the 6th and got the next 5 outs, with 3 strikeouts.
Shun Yamaguchi came in for the eight. He pitched a good inning, giving up just a walk. But he had some troubles in the ninth. He gave up a leadoff double to Christian Yelich, then got two strikeouts, before an Omar Narvaez single.
Ken Giles came in and gave up a walk, to load the bases, and then a 2-run double, to our old friend Eric Sogard. That also put the tying run on second base, but Giles was able to get our other old friend, Justin Smoak to strikeout, to end the game. Giles gets his 14th save.

On offense, we managed 10 hits and 5 walks but we didn’t score until we got 4 in the sixth inning. In that inning:

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a 1-out double.
Bo Bichette singled.
After a Derek Fisher strikeout, Randal Grichuk worked a long at bat and, on the 11th pitch singled home Vlad. That was the end of the game for Brewers’ starter Brandon Woodruff.
Reliever Ray Black came in and, on his second pitch, gave up a 3-run homer to Travis Shaw, his 21st of the season. With more than a half season left to play, Shaw needs 12 more home runs to set a new career high. I’m sure Ross wasn’t expecting that when he signed him at the end of December. Maybe he can have a good 60 games for us in real life?

We got 1 more in the ninth, Vlad singled and scored on Bo’s double. I hope we see that a lot in real life over the next few years.

Vlad, Bo and Randal had 2 hits each. Shaw had the big home run and 2 walks.

JoDs go to Ryu, Shaw, Vlad and Jimenez.

Sim Travis is about as boring as most non-sim players: “We’ll relax tonight and get back at it tomorrow”.

Smoak is having a great season with the Brewers hitting .306/.400/.583 but he isn’t playing full-time. He’s mostly pinch hitting. And Christian Yelich is having another excellent season, hitting .308/.403/.551.

Jays are now 46-33 and we are back in a tie for first place. YAY.