OOTP Season Sim Game 83: Jays beat Angels

Angels 2 Blue Jays 4

The Jays have won 6 of their last 7 games, after a cold stretch that had, temporary, dropped them out of first place. I was worried about this series since the Angels had won 16 of their past 17 games.

And I’ve been conditioned to worry about Matt Shoemaker starts. But he had a good one today (he also just had a very good start, complete game shutout, in the OOTP season I’m playing. Five games left and the Jays are 1 game up on 3 other teams in the Wild Card race).

In this game, Matt went 6.1 innings, allowed just 4 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts. The 2 runs were on a pair of solo homers, from Corey Dickerson and Yonder Alonso. Unfortunately, when he left the game we were down 2-1.

Our bullpen, once again, did a terrific job:

• Brian Moran took over for Shoemaker with 1 out in the seventh. He got a ground out and gave up a walk and then came out of the game with back tightness. He is day-to-day for just a couple of days.
• Dany Jimenez came in and got the lost out of the inning and struck out the side around 2 singles in the eighth. He got the win.
• Ken Giles pitched a quick ninth, with 2 strikeouts, to get his 16th save.

Shoemaker said “I had pretty good command out there”, showing that players in OOTP are just as interesting in interviews as real life players.

On the offensive side, we had troubles with Shohei Ohtani. We only had 2 hits and 3 walks against him in 5.1 innings, with 10 strikeouts. The run we scored off him was a Travis Shaw home runs (his 24th of the season).

But we scored 3 off reliever Zack Kelly. Kelly had a 2.12 ERA going into the game and a 5.23 ERA coming out. Kelly got 2 strikeouts to finish the sixth inning. But in the seventh he got the first out then:

• Travis Shaw walked.
• Teoscar Hernandez tripled.
• Danny Jansen singled.
• Cavan Biggio doubled. That was it for Kelly.
• Jacob Barnes came in and gave up a sac fly to Lourdes Gurriel, before ending the inning.

We only managed 5 hits and 5 walks, but we grouped the hits well.

Let’s give JoDs to Showmaker, Jansen, Hernandez, Giles, Jiminez and Shaw.

36992 sim Jays fans attended the game.

The Jays are now 49-34, a game in front of the Yankees but putting a little distance between them and the rest of the division. The box score says the roof was closed, even with it being a warm 76 F at game time.

Tomorrow Hyun-Jin Ryu (6-2, 3.16 in 13 starts) pitches in the rubber game of the three-game series. Andrew Heaney (8-5, 4.03 in 17 starts) goes for the Angels.