Sportsnet.ca http://sportsnet.ca/author/mike-wilner/feed/ Tue, 19 Mar 2024 04:25:27 EDT en-US hourly 1 Jamie Squire/Getty Images blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run Blue Jays simulation: Bo Bichette shines ahead of All-Star break Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:33:46 EDT Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:40:27 EDT Mike Wilner Mike Wilner pauses his Toronto Blue Jays simulation season ahead of the MLB returning for its 60-game 2020 season. Prospect Nate Pearson makes his long-anticipated simulated MLB debut against the Red Sox and Bo Bichette shines with another phenomenal week.

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In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner has been simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. With Major League Baseball ramping up for what they hope will be an abbreviated 2020 season, much of our attention has shifted towards Spring Training 2.0 and all the preparations for baseball’s return, so the simulation is being suspended now, at what was supposed to be the 2020 All-Star break, by which time the Blue Jays had been scheduled to have played 97 games. Add that to the proposed 60-game schedule and we basically have an entire season. The simulation was done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

Had the 2020 season been played as scheduled — and had this been a normal year and not one in which basically the entire world has been on fire for four months — we would now be celebrating baseball’s annual Mid-Summer Classic. Instead, we have Summer Camp, with teams preparing for an Opening Day that’s a week-and-a-half away, under the cloud of COVID-19 raging in the United States.

In our simulation, now suspended with the return of Major League Baseball, Bo Bichette would have been representing the 47-50 Blue Jays at the All-Star Game at Chavez Ravine. The 22 year-old shortstop was hitting .327/.374/.588 with a club-leading 24 home runs, 36 doubles, 75 runs scored and 67 runs batted in. That’s an astonishing 114 RBI pace from the leadoff spot!

Bichette, who earlier in the simulation won a fake American League Player of the Week award by hitting .536 with five homers and 15 RBIs, had another phenomenal run in the week that just past. At one point, the sophomore slugger had a hit in 11 out of 12 plate appearances as part of a 14-for-17 streak. For the week, he hit .545/.571/.788 with five doubles, though the week ended with him striking out in each of his last four at-bats.

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Clearly, Bo has been the straw that has stirred the drink as the Blue Jays finished the simulated first half strong, going 23-12 since their 24-38 start to the season, though the winning ways have corresponded with one other move, too. Now, correlation is not causation, but since Jonathan Davis was installed as the Jays’ everyday centrefielder in an effort to both bolster the defence and take at-bats away from the struggling Teoscar Hernandez, the Blue Jays have gone 21-11. It should be noted that, at the moment, all Davis is doing is bolstering the defence – he was 0-for-23 this week (with two walks and a hit-by-pitch).

A case could be made for Ken Giles to be heading to L.A., as well. The closer has been magnificent throughout the simulation, notching 21 saves in 24 opportunities and posting a 1.59 ERA with 58 strikeouts in 39 2/3 innings. He’s allowed just 40 baserunners.

Though it was too late of a run to garner All-Star consideration, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. finished the first half absolutely on fire. He went 11-for-24 in the final week and got to the break on a 12-game hit streak, with hits in 21 of his last 24 games — and in one of those hitless games, he wound up scoring three runs! Gurriel struggled through most of the simulation and was demoted from the third spot in the batting order to the seventh following the 1-8 road trip that left the simulated Blue Jays at 24-38 back on June 3. At the time, the left fielder was batting .238/.289/.432. He’s been a new man since the shift downward in the line-up (against righties; he still hits up top when facing a southpaw). Gurriel has hit .385/.450/.622 since the move, raising his overall average up to .292, third highest on the club behind Bichette and Reese McGuire, who is hitting .299.

The final week before the All-Star break was another winning week for the Blue Jays, going 4-3 on a road trip through Boston and Minnesota.

It started with three games at Fenway, and in the opener, the Jays got all they needed just three batters into the game. Bichette and Joe Panik led off with singles off Red Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi, then Travis Shaw wrapped one around the Pesky Pole for a three-run homer. Boston got a couple back against Hyun-Jin Ryu in the second inning, but the lefty slammed the door shut from that point, allowing only three hits the rest of the way in going eight strong innings. It’s a good thing, too, because the Blue Jays only added one more run after the Shaw dinger. It happened in the sixth when, with the bases loaded and nobody out, Randal Grichuk hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

The second game of the series was Nate Pearson’s long-awaited simulation debut. The big righty couldn’t be held back any longer, taking Tanner Roark’s spot in the rotation after Roark managed to go just one inning in his last start, pushing his ERA to 6.72 while barely averaging four innings per start.

Big Nate, the best right-handed pitching prospect in the game, had himself a nice, comfortable lead before he even threw a pitch, thanks to a two-run single by Grichuk that was followed by a two-run double by Danny Jansen in the top of the first.

Pearson walked the first batter he faced, Andrew Benintendi, but then got Rafael Devers to bounce into a double play and struck out J.D. Martinez. The kid ran into a speed bump in the third, loading the bases with two out on two walks and a single and giving up a two-run single to Xander Bogaerts, but he got Mitch Moreland to ground out to end the inning and pretty much cruised the rest of the way through six.

The Jays got Pearson three more runs in the fourth – a two-run single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the big blow – and Pearson wrapped up his outing by striking out the last three batters he faced, handing it over to Roark, who gave up a run over two innings of relief work. Shun Yamaguchi came out for the ninth with a 9-3 lead and gave up a leadoff walk and three straight two-out singles, so Anthony Bass had to bail him out, getting Alex Verdugo to pop up to secure the 9-5 win. Nate Pearson’s first W in his first start.

The Blue Jays brought their brooms to Fenway for the series finale, but Matt Shoemaker had nothing. He gave up a solo homer to Martinez in the first inning and then walked three in a row before giving up an RBI single to Jackie Bradley Jr. The Jays tied it up with a run on a Grichuk single in the second and Bichette’s only home run of the week in the third, but the Red Sox scored seven runs in the bottom of the inning. Panik and Guerrero both made errors and Shoemaker walked another two (to give him six for the game), one with the bases loaded, and he gave way to Sam Gaviglio, who didn’t have it either.

Gaviglio hit the first batter he faced, Jose Peraza, to force in another run, then a fly out and sacrifice fly later, coughed up a three-run homer to Martinez.

Credit the Blue Jays for not giving in even though they were down 9-2. They got a three-run homer from Gurriel and a two-run shot from Grichuk around a ribbie double by Bichette (his fourth of five hits in the game) while Jordan Romano, Wilmer Font and Rafael Dolis held the fort, and closed to within two runs.

But Matt Barnes and Brandon Workman combined to strike out the final six Jays hitters and the Red Sox staved off the sweep with a 10-8 win.

The final series before the All-Star break, and the last of the simulation, was a four-gamer in Minnesota. The Twins had come to Toronto in April and swept the Blue Jays handily, winning the three games by a combined score of 26-7.

In the opener at Target Field, another Travis Shaw three-run homer put the Jays on top, but Miguel Sano went deep twice off Chase Anderson. The Twins had a 4-3 lead into the seventh, when Bichette came up huge again, driving a go-ahead two-out two-run double.

This time, though, the bullpen couldn’t handle it. In the eighth, Mitch Garver homered off of Dolis to tie it up. Romano came in to work the ninth – Giles being held back an inning or two in case the Blue Jays took the lead (but just an inning or two, we weren’t going to Showalter this thing) – and didn’t get a single hitter out. He hit the leadoff man, walked the next batter and then gave up the walk-off single to Jorge Polanco for a 6-5 Twins win.

The Blue Jays finally got their first win against the Twins the next night, building a big lead and getting spectacular work from Trent Thornton. McGuire doubled in a run in the first and Grichuk belted a three-run homer in the fourth. Later in the inning, Bichette and Shaw would hit back-to-back two-out doubles to make it 5-0 Blue Jays. All the while, Thornton was brilliant, allowing just two hits over seven innings. He faced just one batter over the minimum, except for the fourth inning (in which he walked three, hit a man and gave up a double, but we don’t have to dwell on that).

Gaviglio and Bass gave up back-to-back homers to Josh Donaldson and Garver in the eighth, but Giles closed it out in the ninth for a 6-5 Jays win.

More pitching brilliance in the third game of the series, as Ryu went eight strong again, holding an extremely potent Twins offence to just four hits. One of them was a home run by Sano, though, and through five innings the Jays had only scored a single run of their own off Jose Berrios — on back to back doubles by Guerrero and Rowdy Tellez.

Vladdy Jr. broke the tie in the sixth, belting just his 11th home run of the simulation, and the Jays added three insurance runs they wouldn’t need in the ninth, winning 5-1 with a chance to take the series with Pearson on the mound the next day.

But in the series finale, Jake Odorizzi was just too much. The righty threw seven innings of five-hit shutout, striking out 14 against just two walks. A two-run homer by Sano was more than enough for the Twins.

Pearson gave up three runs over six innings — the Sano homer as well as a two-out RBI double to Nelson Cruz in the fifth — walking one and striking out only four, and the Blue Jays bats that gave him a four-run lead in the first inning of his first game could muster nothing at all.

There was drama in the ninth as Tellez led off with a double and Gurriel was hit by a pitch to bring the tying run to the plate with nobody out, but Twins’ closer struck out Hernandez, Davis and Bichette to seal the 3-0 win and take us to the All-Star break and the end of the simulation.

Thanks to all of you who followed along with the sim over these past 97 games. Hopefully it brought you a necessary, fun distraction from what’s been (and continues to be) a very difficult time in the world. I’ll continue to run the simulation in the background just in case something happens to suspend the real MLB and we have to start this up again, but it seems as though strong safety protocols are in place and I believe we will have the 60-game baseball season that is being planned. Ben Wagner and I will be thrilled to bring you every game across the Sportsnet Radio Network!

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blue-jays-hyun-jin-ryu Blue Jays simulation: Canada Day woes continue as losses pile up at home Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:55:22 EDT Mon, 06 Jul 2020 15:55:22 EDT Mike Wilner Times were good for the Blue Jays going into this past week of their simulated season. They’d swept an entire interleague road trip and finished off their third straight 5-1 week. But this last week didn’t go as well.

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In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner has been simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. With Major League Baseball ramping up for what they hope will be an abbreviated 2020 season, much of our attention will shift toward Spring Training 2.0 and all the preparations for baseball’s return. This simulation will continue through what was supposed to have been the 2020 All-Star break, by which time the Blue Jays had been scheduled to have played 97 games. Add that to the proposed 60-game schedule and we basically have an entire season. You can follow the games as they happen each day on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

Times were good for the Blue Jays going into this past week. They’d swept an entire interleague road trip and finished off their third straight 5-1 week – a run that included an eight-game win streak and culminated in an incredible 15-2 run that got the Jays all the way back to .500 after a 24-38 start to the simulated season.

This last week didn’t go as well.

It started with a visit from the Chicago White Sox, a team with which they had split four games down in the Windy City back in mid-May. In the opener, sophomore righties Dylan Cease and Trent Thornton locked horns, and carried twin two-hit shutouts into the fifth inning, when Cease blinked first.

The red-hot Billy McKinney led off the bottom of the fifth with his fifth home run in the last four games to open the scoring. Rowdy Tellez followed with a double, and walks to Jonathan Davis and Travis Shaw (around a Bo Bichette strikeout) brought Evan Marshall into the game with the bases loaded. Cavan Biggio hit a fielder’s choice grounder to score Tellez and the Jays had a 2-0 lead, which Thornton promptly gave back.

With two out and nobody on in the top of the sixth, Thornton issued his first free pass of the night to Jose Abreu, and Edwin Encarnacion (he’s going to look really weird in a White Sox uniform) belted a two-run shot to tie it. Eloy Jimenez then chased Thornton with a single and Sam Gaviglio came in and gave up a go-ahead RBI double to Yasmani Grandal.

Teoscar Hernandez dramatically tied the game with a pinch-hit homer in the bottom of the seventh, but the White Sox put together another two-out, none-on rally in the eighth. This time it was singles by Encarnacion and Jimenez followed by a two-run Grandal double to put the Sox ahead for good on the way to a 5-3 win. That game closed out June for the Blue Jays, an extremely successful month at 18-7.

Canada Day followed, and the Blue Jays have been historically pretty poor on our nation’s birthday. They’re 15-26 all-time on Canada Day, and until last year’s 11-4 win over the Kansas City Royals, they’d lost three straight July 1st affairs by a combined score of 23-4. This simulation isn’t sentient, and isn’t aware of any of that, but all those trends held true.

The Jays actually struck first in the game. With two on and two out in the third, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a weak ground ball to short that Andrew Romine (subbing for injured 2019 A.L. batting champ Tim Anderson) threw away, allowing a run to score.

But that was all the Blue Jays would get, and Hyun-Jin Ryu couldn’t make it stand up. The lefty imploded in the fourth, loading the bases on a pair of one-out singles and walk, then walking James McCann to force in the tying run. Cheslor Cuthbert reached on a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. error to cash the go-ahead run, and another scored on a sacrifice fly by Leury Garcia. The Pale Hose put up another three-spot in the sixth, the big blow a two-run single by Romine off Wilmer Font, who had come in to try to bail out Ryu.

The Jays only got one runner past first base after the third inning, falling 8-1 for another Canada Day defeat.

Any thoughts the Blue Jays had of staving off a Chicago sweep were blown out of the water early in the finale. Tanner Roark lasted just one inning, allowing four runs on three hits, including back-to-back doubles by Adam Engel and Yoan Moncada to begin the game. The defence was miserable, as Davis, Guerrero and Roark himself each made an error in that first inning – three of the five miscues the Jays would make in the game.

It got worse as the White Sox plated eight more in the third inning, including a grand slam by Romine and the first of two Encarnacion home runs in the game, to run up a 12-0 lead. The Jays got a two-run home run from Gurriel and a three-run shot from Randal Grichuk later on, but got good and pasted, losing 14-6 and being swept away by the White Sox, falling back to 42-45 overall with the New York Yankees coming to town.

Normally a visit from the Bronx Bombers isn’t good news for anyone, but the Jays had taken two of three from the Yankees in each of their first two series of the simulation, and they wouldn’t have to face Gerrit Cole in the weekend series, so there was some good news.

Big Maple, James Paxton, returned to Toronto, where he’d thrown a no-hitter for the Mariners in 2018, and squared off with the Blue Jays’ de facto ace of the simulation, Matt Shoemaker, in the opener, but it was no pitchers’ duel early on.

By the time the first four Yankees had come to the plate, the visitors had already built a 2-0 lead. D.J. LeMahieu led off the ballgame with a double and Brett Gardner singled him to third. Gleyber Torres followed with a sacrifice fly and Giancarlo Stanton singled in Gardner before Shoemaker could get out of it.

The Blue Jays got a run back in the bottom of the inning on a home run by Gurriel, then tied it in the second as Davis singled home Danny Jansen’s two-out double, but the tie was short-lived.

Gardner led off the third with a walk and a Torres single put runners on the corners. Stanton cashed Gardner with a groundout to put the Yanks back on top, but not for long. In the bottom of the inning, Grichuk took Paxton deep with a man on to give the Jays the lead for the first time in the game. It was the second straight game in which Grichuk and Gurriel had both homered.

From that point on, Shoemaker got locked in. The big righty didn’t give up another hit until the eighth inning, by which point the Blue Jays had increased their lead to 5-3 thanks to a sixth-inning RBI groundout by Bichette.

That Yankees hit was a Torres single with two out in the eighth, bringing up the dangerous slugger Stanton. Shoemaker destroyed right-handed hitters in 2019, holding them to a .148/.200/.295 mark, so he stayed in to face Stanton and struck him out to end what wound up being a terrific eight-inning performance. Ken Giles locked down the 5-3 for his 19th save, snapping the Jays’ three-game slide.

The next game was a tight one as well. Bichette and Kyle Higashioka traded solo homers early, and it was tied 1-1 into the sixth when Gaviglio took over for Chase Anderson after the starter’s strong five-and-dive in the sweltering heat. The first batter Sammy G. faced was Torres, who homered to give the Yankees the lead.

Yankees starter Jonathan Loaisiga left after five innings as well, and lefty Tyler Lyons took the reins in the sixth. The first man he faced was Gurriel, pinch-hitting for Shaw, and Gurriel doubled to put the tying run in scoring position. The double was stranded, though, and Gurriel was the last Blue Jay to reach base in the game as Lyons, Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman combined to retire the last dozen Jays to come to the plate, securing a 3-1 Yankees win to tie up the series and set the stage for rubber match madness.

The series finale matched Thornton against Masahiro Tanaka, and neither starter had anything. The Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out in the first inning, but it looked like Thornton might wriggle out of it as the righty got Miguel Andujar to ground into a double play. A run scored, but Thornton was an out away from finishing the inning with minimal damage. Mike Ford and Mike Tauchman had other ideas, though, belting back-to-back home runs to put the Yankees up by four.

As poorly as Thornton did in the first inning, at least he finished it. Not only did Tanaka not make it out of the opening frame, but the Yankees’ starter didn’t even record an out.

Bichette and Shaw led off with singles and Biggio followed with a three-run homer. Then Guerrero singled and Reese McGuire went deep, and just like that the Jays had taken the lead. Gurriel followed with a double to send Tanaka to the showers and Luis Cessa came in to give up an RBI single to Tellez. Six runs scored for the home side before an out was even recorded.

The Yankees got one back on another Ford homer in the third and threatened for more with a Tauchman double that sent Thornton to the showers. Shun Yamaguchi came in with two out and Clint Frazier singled to left. Tauchman rounded third, heading home with the tying run, but Gurriel’s throw was waiting and the inning was over. The Blue Jays extended their lead in the bottom of the frame with round-trippers by Grichuk and Bichette, the latter a two-run shot, and it was 9-5 after just three innings.

But just as Tanaka and Thornton didn’t have it, neither did Yamaguchi. The Yanks opened up the top of the fourth single-single-walk, then the righty walked Stanton to force in a run. That was it for him, having faced a total of five batters with the only out recorded coming on the outfield assist by Gurriel.

Jordan Romano took over in the untenable situation of bases loaded and nobody out, and Andujar got him for a two-run single to bring the Yankees back within a run. An out later, Tauchman cashed the tying run with a base hit of his own.

The Yankees took the lead the very next inning with an unearned run off of Font. With two out and nobody on, Grichuk dropped a LeMahieu fly ball in centre for a two-base error. Former Blue Jay Gio Urshela followed with the go-ahead ribbie double. Back-to-back, two-out doubles by Chris Iannetta and Frazier made it 11-9 in the sixth, but Guerrero got the Blue Jays back within a run with a solo homer in the bottom of the inning – just his ninth of the simulation.

That was as close as they would get, though, as this time the Yanks’ bullpen combo of Adam Ottavino, Britton and Chapman put up zeroes the rest of the way to finish off a crazy 11-10 win. For the first time this simulated season, the Blue Jays lost a series to the Yankees.

The Jays followed up those three straight 5-1 weeks with a 1-5 week, and now hit the road to Boston and Minnesota with seven games to go until the all-star break.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games. Follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until the real thing gets started!

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Nathan Denette/CP MLB-Blue-Jays-celebrate-win-over-Rangers MLB-Blue-Jays-celebrate-win-over-Rangers Blue Jays simulation: McKinney leads the way in season-long win streak Mon, 29 Jun 2020 18:03:37 EDT Mon, 29 Jun 2020 18:03:37 EDT Mike Wilner The Toronto Blue Jays enter the halfway marked of a simulated season on a 15-2 tear thanks in part to Billy McKinney’s four-homer week.

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In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner has been simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. With Major League Baseball ramping up for what they hope will be an abbreviated 2020 season, much of our attention will shift towards Spring Training 2.0 and all the preparations for baseball’s return. This simulation will continue through what was supposed to have been the 2020 All-Star break, by which time the Blue Jays had been scheduled to have played 100 games. Add that to the proposed 60-game schedule and we basically have an entire season. You can follow the games as they happen each day on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

The Blue Jays came into this past week riding high. They’d just swept the Pirates in Pittsburgh to run their win streak to four games and had won 10 of their last 11, having finished off a second straight 5-1 week. The juggernaut would not be slowed.

This past week began with the second leg of the interleague road trip. The Jays went to Milwaukee to face a Brewers team that built on their back-to-back post-season berths by adding friendly faces like Justin Smoak and Eric Sogard over the winter, and also familiar foe Brock Holt. The series opener pitted Toronto’s Chase Anderson against his former team — and the Blue Jays wasted no time building him a huge lead.

Bo Bichette, coming off his incredible (.536 average, 5 HR, 15 RBI) AL Simulated Player of the Week honours the week before, picked up right where he left off, opening the game with a home run, his fifth in the last four games.

The second inning started with three-straight Blue Jays hits to load the bases with nobody out, but both Jonathan Davis and Anderson followed with ground balls that resulted in force outs at the plate. Not to worry, Bichette was next, and he smacked a two-run single. Travis Shaw then did the same.

In the third, Bichette again came up with two runners on – following an RBI single by the pitcher Anderson, no less – and this time he went deep again. The three-run shot gave Bichette six RBIs in the first three innings and made it 9-0, Blue Jays.

They would go on to win in a rout, 15-5. Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. added a three-run homer of his own and Bichette got the rest of the night off after his fifth-inning single made him 4-for-4. Jacob Waguespack picked up Anderson for the final four innings, notching his first save of the simulation. He has yet to record his first real-life save.

The middle game of the series was far less of a slugfest. In fact, it was the first time in six games that the Blue Jays didn’t score at least eight runs. Maybe it was because Bichette went 0-for-3.

A brilliant performance by Trent Thornton did the trick this time. The sophomore righty threw seven innings of four-hit ball, with the only damage being a two-run homer by Avisail Garcia in the bottom of the fifth. In the top of that inning, the Blue Jays had taken a 3-0 lead thanks to a two-run shot by Rowdy Tellez and a two-out Joe Panik double that was cashed by a Davis single.

Davis went deep in the sixth – just his second home run of the simulation – to provide a little insurance, and the pitching took it from there. Anthony Bass and Ken Giles each threw a perfect inning in relief of the spectacular Thornton and the Blue Jays nabbed a season-high seventh straight win, 4-2 over the Brew Crew.

In the series finale, the Jays weren’t looking to just sweep the series, but to sweep the entire road trip. It was the 81st game of the season, the official mid-way point, and a Blue Jays team that was looking pretty much done after a 1-8 road trip left them at 24-38 was now 39-41, looking to hit the halfway mark just a game under the break-even point. And they had their ace on the mound!

Hyun-Jin Ryu didn’t have it early, though, and he dug his team a big hole.

Five of the first six batters the lefty faced reached base. With two on and one out, Ryu gave up back-to-back-to-back RBI singles to Keston Hiura, ol’ Smoakey and Manny Pina. In the second inning, Christian Yelich doubled home Lorenzo Cain and the Jays were down 4-0. At that point, Ryu locked it in.

Following the Yelich double, Ryu gave up just one more hit before being pinch-hit for in the seventh, retiring 14 of the last 16 hitters he faced, giving the Jays a chance to mount a comeback. But Brandon Woodruff was spinning a gem for the home side. Woodruff allowed just three hits through seven terrific innings, striking out 10 while walking three.

He didn’t come out for the eighth, though, and with a four-run lead, the Brewers didn’t go to their regular set-up man, Brent Suter, instead bringing in righty Ray Black.

The Jays were thrilled to see the end of Woodruff, and even more thrilled when Black walked the first two batters he faced. This used to be where we would see a pitching change, with Suter coming in to bail Black out, but relievers have to face at least three batters now, so Black stayed in and served up a three-run bomb to Guerrero Jr. to shave the deficit to a single run.

That brought Suter into the game, and Reese McGuire greeted him by belting a game-tying solo shot. Suter retired the next two batters, but then walk a pair, so Milwaukee’s hard-throwing closer Josh Hader had to come in to face Bichette with two out, and got him to ground out to end the inning.

In the top of the ninth, Travis Shaw led off with a walk. Hader argued the ball four call a little too loudly and got himself thrown out of the game, so in came former Blue Jay David Phelps to try to preserve the tie. After Cavan Biggio struck out, Guerrero Jr. came to the plate and crushed a line drive to deep centre. Lorenzo Cain gave chase and crashed into the wall in pursuit, but he couldn’t come up with it and Vladdy had a triple to give the Jays the lead for the first time in the game. Another perfect inning of relief from Giles and the Blue Jays had a 5-4 win and a 6-0 road trip. At the season’s halfway point, they were 40-41, having won seven in a row and 13 of 14.

Would a day off, combined with a visit from the best player in the game, slow them down?

Mike Trout and the Angels rolled into Toronto and made an immediate impression. Tommy La Stella led off the series opener with a home run off Tanner Roark to put the Halos on top early.

In the second inning, Andrelton Simmons doubled and Jason Castro followed with a high pop-up toward the seats on the first base side. Tellez ran after it and crashed into the short retaining wall. The ball dropped foul, and Rowdy had to leave the game, replaced by Billy McKinney. That would prove quite meaningful.

David Fletcher scored Simmons with a single, and it stayed 2-0 Angels until the fifth, when the Blue Jays finally got to lefty Patrick Sandoval. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. doubled with one out and Guerrero Jr. walked behind him, bringing up McKinney, who put one in the seats to give the Jays a 3-2 lead.

Roark was having one of his best starts of the simulation, and he had retired eight batters in a row when he hit Brian Goodwin with a pitch with one out in the sixth. A Simmons groundout moved the runner into scoring position with two out, and Roark was left in to face Castro, who doubled Goodwin home to tie the game.

Sam Gaviglio came out of the Jays’ bullpen to throw a pair of shutout innings while Cam Bedrosian did the same for the Angels, and it was still tied 3-3 going to the bottom of the eighth when McKinney led off by, of course, going deep. His second home run of the game was his third of the simulation, and he wasn’t even supposed to be playing.

Working on a third day out of four, Giles wasn’t perfect, but he stranded a leadoff double, getting Trout to ground out to end what was the Blue Jays’ eighth straight win, a 4-3 nail-biter. Trout, Anthony Rendon and Shohei Ohtani combined to go 0-for-12.

All good things must come to an end, but surprisingly it was Matt Shoemaker who got his ears pinned back to snap the winning streak. The former Angel has been the Blue Jays best starting pitcher in the simulation, throwing a no-hitter among other things, but he didn’t have it on this day.

Shoemaker gave up a four-spot in the first inning, with Ohtani doubling in a run and Goodwin singling home a pair with two out. In the second, Shoemaker gave up a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases with one out, and Shun Yamaguchi got the call from the bullpen. Unfortunately, he was no better.

Yamaguchi gave up a run-scoring ground ball to Ohtani, then served up a three-run homer to Albert Pujols to make it 8-0.

Credit the Jays for making it kind of close, though. McKinney homered in the third, giving him a round-tripper three consecutive at-bats, and a three-run homer by Gurriel Jr. in the seventh cut the Angels’ lead to 9-6, but Toronto would get no closer. Ohtani added a two-run shot off Wilmer Font in the eighth and the win streak ended at eight with an 11-8 loss.

The rubber match was another slugfest, and again McKinney was at the centre of it all. With Bichette receiving the day off – he had played in every game so far in the sim – McKinney was put in the leadoff spot and he tripled in the bottom of the first. Shaw followed by going deep for a quick 2-0 lead, which the Jays built to 7-2 through three innings with help from a Tellez homer, a Gurriel Jr. RBI double and RBI singles by Panik and, who else, McKinney.

Anderson couldn’t handle the prosperity and gave up three runs in the top of the fifth – as the first four batters of the inning reaching on a pair of singles and a pair of walks. Waguespack came in to bail him out, but the lead was down to 7-5.

Not for long, though, because McKinney struck again, drilling a three-run home run in the bottom of the fifth to get the lead back up to five runs. Over three incredible games, McKinney went 7-for-12 with a triple, four home runs and 10 RBIs. In this game, both he and Shaw finished a double shy of the cycle.

The Angels would never get close, though they did get the tying run to the on-deck circle against Anthony Bass in the ninth. It was an 11-7 victory to close out the third straight 5-1 week for the Blue Jays and get them back to .500 at 42-42.

The homestand continues this week after a Monday off-day. The Blue Jays will host the White Sox for Canada Day and the Yankees for the Fourth of July. This current 15-2 run has been built almost exclusively outside the division, with only three games against the Tampa Bay Rays. Once the White Sox leave town, though, it’s the Yankees and Red Sox, followed by the big-hitting Minnesota Twins. It’ll be a good test right up to the all-star break.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games. Follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until the real thing gets started!

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Jamie Squire/Getty Images blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run Blue Jays simulation: Jays stay hot thanks to Bichette’s magical week Mon, 22 Jun 2020 13:35:24 EDT Mon, 22 Jun 2020 13:35:24 EDT Mike Wilner Bo Bichette should win AL Player of the Month after the best week in the majors of his young career. Mike Wilner recaps all the action from his latest Blue Jays Simulation.

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With most sports still on pause as the world tries to both slow the spread of COVID-19 and begin the recovery from lockdown, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner is simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen each day on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.


When last we met in this space, the Blue Jays had completed their best week of the simulation so far. They swept the Tigers in Detroit to cap a 5-1 week of work that included a no-hitter by Matt Shoemaker.

This past week, the wins just kept on coming as the Blue Jays juggernaut came home to face the Tampa Bay Rays before hitting the highway for an interleague road trip.

It started with Shoemaker back on the hill, attempting to follow-up the simulated no-no in his previous start. Only once in major-league history has a pitcher thrown back-to-back no-hitters (Johnny Vander Meer for the Reds in 1938).

The Vander Meer talk ended early in this one. Incredibly early, in fact, as Brandon Lowe led off the game with a double. He scored a couple of batters later on a fielder’s choice and the 1-0 deficit the Blue Jays faced was the first time they’d trailed at any point in the last six games. The Rays added to their lead in the second inning when Mike Zunino’s two-out RBI double made it 2-0. Lowe followed with a single and Austin Meadows walked to load the bases. It was at that point that Shoemaker started Shoemakering.

The righty got Yandy Diaz to fly out to centre to end the inning, and that was it. Shoemaker didn’t allow another Ray to reach base the rest of the way through his eight-inning outing, retiring the final 19 hitters he faced. It was the third straight start in which Shoemaker had thrown at least six consecutive no-hit innings.

While Shoemaker was shutting things down, the Blue Jays got to T-Bay starter Blake Snell. After a Willy Adames error allowed a run to score in the fourth to get the Jays on the board, Bo Bichette led off the fifth inning with a solo homer to tie the game. It was Bichette’s first hit of what would wind up being a magical week for the Jays’ sophomore shortstop. Cavan Biggio followed the Bichette shot with a single, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. doubled him home and Rowdy Tellez put one in the seats to cap a four-run frame, more than enough to lift the Blue Jays’ to a 5-2 win, their sixth in a row – a season high.

If the Jays were going to make it seven in a row, they’d have to work overtime. Chase Anderson and Charlie Morton had a nice little pitchers’ duel in the middle game of the series, with the Rays’ ace cracking first. In the bottom of the fifth, Morton gave up a one-out double to Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. An out later, he hit Jonathan Davis with a pitch. Next up was Bichette, and he doubled home both runners to put the Jays on top 2-0.

Anderson came out for the sixth having allowed just three hits to that point, but he gave up back to back singles to Meadows and Diaz, then a game-tying double to Ji-Man Choi before the bullpen could come to the rescue.

The Rays had a chance to take the lead with men on first and second and one out in the eighth, but Anthony Bass pitched out of it. The Blue Jays had men on first and second with two out in the ninth, but Randal Grichuk flied out and it was off to extras.

In the top of the 11th, the Rays got a break when, with two out and nobody on, Kevin Kiermaier hit a ground ball to third. Guerrero fielded it cleanly and made a good strong throw to first, but the ball was dropped by Biggio, who had just moved over from second base that inning, since Teoscar Hernandez had pinch-hit for Travis Shaw in the bottom of the 10th.

The Biggio error opened the floodgates. Rafael Dolis hit the next batter, then Lowe hit a gap double that scored Kiermaier and broke the tie. Jordan Romano came in for Dolis and allowed a two-run single to Meadows before getting out of the inning. The Jays couldn’t mount a rally against Rays’ closer Nick Anderson, and the win streak was snapped at six with a 5-2 loss to the Rays in 11 innings.

Often a series against Tampa Bay can be a harbinger of bad things to come for the Blue Jays, and it looked like this would remain the case as the Rays jumped out to a big lead in the rubber match. Trent Thornton was back after serving a seven-game suspension for hitting Joey Gallo of the Rangers, and he gave up a two-run homer to Adames in the second and a two-run double to Kiermaier in the fourth. In the sixth inning, a one-out solo shot by Hunter Renfroe made it 5-1 Rays and knocked the righty out of the game.

The Blue Jays managed to cut the deficit in half on a two-run homer by Vladdy, Jr., but they went into the bottom of the eighth down 6-3 against hard-throwing Rays’ righty Diego Castillo.

Nobody could even get the bat on the ball against Castillo, who throws 100, but it turns out they didn’t have to. Around a couple of strikeouts, Castillo walked one and hit two to load the bases and, with the tying runs on base, the call went to Anderson to face Bichette. Bo won the battle.

The Jays’ shortstop tied the game with a three-run double and was then ushered home by a two-run blast off the bat of Brandon Drury, who had come in for defence the inning before. Ken Giles made it stand up with a hitless ninth and the Blue Jays had a miracle comeback win, scoring five times with two out in the bottom of the eighth to take the series from the Rays with an 8-6 victory.

With seven wins in eight games under their belts, the Jays headed off for an interleague road trip that started with three games in Pittsburgh. And even with no designated hitter, the Jays had their most explosive series of the simulation.

It started with Bichette’s best day in the majors, and probably ever. He led the ballgame off with a home run, and singled in his next at-bat, but those were 2/3 of the Jays’ hits through the first five innings and they went into the sixth in a 1-1 tie.

Bichette led off the sixth with a homer as well, his second of the game, and a one-out walk and single sent Pirates’ starter Steven Brault to the showers for Michael Feliz, who walked Grichuk to load the bases, then walked Danny Jansen to force in a run. Up next was Drury who, of course, belted a Grand Slam. His second homer in as many games and his fourth of the simulation.

From there, the rout was on. Chris Stratton took over for the Pirates in the seventh, faced five hitters and allowed four doubles, one to Bichette. Bo singled in the eighth ahead of a Gurriel homer that made it 12-1 and allowed the Jays to empty the bench to give the regulars the rest of the night off. Not Bichette, though. He was due up fifth in the ninth inning, but was a triple away from hitting for the cycle and would be given the chance if the Jays could get the inning to him.

It didn’t look good, as Hector Noesi popped up the first two Blue Jay hitters. But then Jonathan Davis joined the parade and belted the Jays’ fifth home run of the game and Joe Panik followed with a double to bring Bichette to the plate.

Bo was 5-for-5 in the game, with two singles, a double and two home runs. He needed a triple to become just the fourth Blue Jay ever to hit for the cycle. He didn’t get it.

Instead, Bichette crushed his third home run of the night. Only once in real life has a Blue Jay had six hits in a game – Frank Catalanotto did it in 2004. Carlos Delgado’s four-homer game the year before established the Jays’ record of 16 total bases in a single game that still stands. Bichette, simulatedly, tied both those marks.

The Pirates got three meaningless runs off Jacob Waguespack in the bottom of the ninth that didn’t take the shine off Bichette’s big day (or Gurriel’s, for that matter – Lourdes had four hits and also missed the cycle by a triple) in a 15-4 Blue Jays win.

Second verse, same as the first, though this time the Jays didn’t wait until the sixth to start scoring. They got three hits in the first inning but came away empty-handed because Pirates’ right fielder Gregory Polanco threw out Shaw trying to score from second on a two-out single by Reese McGuire.

Pittsburgh got a run off Tanner Roark in the bottom of the first, but their top pitching prospect, Mitch Keller, fell apart in the second.

With two on and two out, the Jays’ line-up flipped back to the top and, in his second look at the Jays’ hitters, Keller didn’t retire a single one. He allowed back-to-back-to-back RBI singles to Bichette, Shaw and Biggio, then threw a wild pitch to move the runners over before giving up a two-run single to Vlad, Jr. A five-run inning put the Jays up for good, though the Bucs closed to within a run by the end of the third.

Roark tightened up from that point, retiring nine of the final 11 hitters he faced before leaving after five with a 7-4 lead, the extra two runs courtesy of a Biggio homer.

The Jays added four in the seventh — the big blows being back to back two-out doubles by Bichette (two RBIs) and Drury. Three more runs in the eighth thanks to a two-run homer by Grichuk, his fourth hit of the game, and a run-scoring double from Tellez and the Jays had another big win, this time 14-4.

Biggio joined Grichuk in the four-hit club. Bichette only had three knocks, but he also scored three times and drove in three.

The Blue Jays went into the finale looking for their second consecutive weekend sweep on the road, having turned the trick in Detroit the weekend prior. Also, they were looking for their second series sweep of the entire simulation.

They fell behind early once again, thanks to an uncharacteristically wild Shoemaker, who walked a pair in the first inning then allowed a two-out RBI single to Jose Osuna. The Blue Jays took the lead in the third on a two-run homer by – who else? – Bichette. It was his 15th (and final) hit of the week, the fifth of which was a home run. Bichette leads the club with 19 homers as we approach the halfway point of the simulated season.

In the bottom of the third, Bryan Reynolds drew a leadoff walk. He was on second when Osuna singled to left with two out. The speedy Pittsburgher rounded third and headed for home, but Gurriel’s throw beat him there. McGuire put the tag on to snuff out the tying run, and that was as close as the home side would get.

The Jays added two more in the fourth on the first of two RBI doubles for Teoscar Hernandez and two more in the seventh on a ribbie single by Hernandez and an outfield error by Osuna. Then two more in the ninth for good measure as Hernandez and Panik hit back to back RBI doubles.

Shoemaker struggled through his five innings of work, walking five against four strikeouts, but only gave up the one run and the bullpen took it from there.

The Blue Jays finished off their second straight 5-1 week with a sweep in Pittsburgh, taking the finale in cubic fashion, by a score of 8-2.

As for Bichette’s big week? He can expect some hardware as the simulated American League Player of the Week after going 15-for-28 with five doubles, five home runs, 11 runs scored and 15 RBIs. Bichette hit .536/.581/1.250 over the six games; not a bad week at the office.

The red-hot Blue Jays have won 10 of their last 11 games (and 13 of 16 since a disastrous 1-8 road trip) to climb all the way up from 24-38 to 37-41 as they start this week with the second half of their interleague road trip. They’ll face old pals Justin Smoak, Eric Sogard and David Phelps in Milwaukee, along with old nemesis Brock Holt, before coming home for a date with Mike Trout and the Angels.

The halfway point of the simulation comes at the close of the series in Milwaukee. If the Jays sweep it, they’ll be just a game under .500 for the first half. That’s a pretty tall order against a team that’s been in the playoffs the last two years, though.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games. Follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until the real thing gets started, if it does at all.

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Frank Franklin II/AP shoemaker1_1280 Blue Jays simulation league: Shoemaker leads Toronto to best week yet Mon, 15 Jun 2020 14:59:07 EDT Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:16:49 EDT Mike Wilner The Toronto Blue Jays entered this past week on a high note, having taken three out of four from the Texas Rangers after a disastrous 1-8 road trip, and things got even better — but not before an early bump in the road.

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With most sports still on pause as the world tries to both slow the spread of COVID-19 and begin the recovery from lockdown, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games until things get started up again. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner is simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen each day on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.



The Toronto Blue Jays entered this past week on a high note, having taken three out of four from the Texas Rangers after a disastrous 1-8 road trip, and things got even better — but not before an early bump in the road.

The Seattle Mariners came to town to open a three-game series and knocked around Tanner Roark in the opener, putting 11 men on base against him in just four innings.

Somehow, they only scored three runs, but that was enough to build a lead that they never relinquished. Rookie Justus Sheffield – the prize return in the trade that sent Big Maple, James Paxton, to the Yankees – went six strong and left with a 4-2 lead. The Jays rallied late, with two-out singles from Reese McGuire and Bo Bichette putting the tying run on base in the bottom of the ninth, but M’s closer Matt Magill struck out Cavan Biggio to preserve a 5-3 win for the Jays’ expansion cousins.

That, however, would be the Blue Jays’ only loss of the week. And the winning would start with simulated history being made the next night.

Matt Shoemaker took the mound for the Jays in the middle game of the series, and not only continued his brilliance to this point in the simulation, but took it a mighty step forward.

In 13 starts to begin the “season,” Shoemaker had allowed just 50 hits in 87 innings of work. Last time out, he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against Texas before allowing a home run to Danny Santana.

This time, Shoemaker once again took a no-hitter into the seventh, then into the eighth, and into the ninth.

It wasn’t perfect, by any means. Shoemaker walked J.P. Crawford in the first inning, the second batter he faced. Another Mariner reached in the second on a Rowdy Tellez error, but that was it for a while. The big righty set down 18 Seattle hitters in a row after that, a streak broken up by a two-out walk to Dee Gordon in the eighth.

While Shoemaker was putting up zeroes, the Blue Jays built him a 5-0 lead over the first four innings, helped out by three Seattle errors, but also an RBI double by Tellez and a single and a ground out by Joe Panik that each knocked in a run.

The drama was all on the pitching side, though. Only one no-hitter has ever been thrown in Blue Jays history, and none on home soil. That lone no-no was Dave Stieb’s on September 2, 1990 in Cleveland. It was the fourth time Stieb had had a no-hitter going with two out in the ninth inning. Since then, Roy Halladay got that close — in his second big-league start back in 1998 — and Brandon Morrow did it in 2010 against the Rays, but neither was able to seal the deal.

After the walk to Gordon, Shoemaker struck out Mallex Smith to end the eighth, and after the Blue Jays were held hitless in the bottom of the frame by Wei-Yin Chen, Shoemaker came back out to the mound to make his bid for simulated history.

He struck out Shed Long. Then he struck out Crawford. And, with one out to go, he struck out long-time Blue Jays nemesis Kyle Seager and had what would have been the second no-hitter in Blue Jays’ history. Shoemaker wound up with 10 strikeouts over his brilliant outing, and the Jays had a 5-0 win. It was sweet revenge for Seattle’s 2018 no-hitter at Rogers Centre, authored by Paxton.

It should be noted that I have been playing this particular baseball simulation game for over three decades, and I have had my teams throw only two no-hitters over that span (Francisco Oliveras, I think, in the early ‘90s and Mike Fiers a couple of years ago). This is definitely not a foreseeable outcome, or anywhere near a regular occurrence, in the simulation. It was, however, really exciting.

Chase Anderson had a tough act to follow the next day in the rubber match of the series, and there was no no-hit drama to be had at all. Gordon led off the game with an infield single on a little dribbler in front of the mound that Anderson threw away down the right field line. Gordon got greedy, though, and was thrown out trying to go all the way to third on the play.

The Blue Jays took the early lead off Nick Margevicius as Bichette led off the bottom of the first with a double and Biggio singled him home, but Seattle tied it in the second on a solo homer by Daniel Vogelbach. That was the last hit the Mariners would get off Anderson, though, and the righty took it all the way to the seventh inning before handing it off to the bullpen.

At that point, the Blue Jays had a 3-1 lead thanks to back-to-back two-out RBI doubles by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Reese McGuire in the third. A shutout inning of relief each from Sam Gaviglio, Anthony Bass and Ken Giles secured a 3-1 win and the Jays’ second-straight series victory.

It was time for the shortest road trip of the season, both in distance and time. The Jays headed down the 401 for a three-game jaunt to Detroit to take on the lowly Tigers, with five wins in their last seven games.

Trent Thornton was serving his suspension for drilling Joey Gallo in a game against Texas the week prior, so Shun Yamaguchi took the ball for his first start of the simulation. Seventy games into the season, this was the first time one of the Blue Jays’ five regular starters had missed a turn — an incredible feat for which luck gets more credit than anything else.

Yamaguchi was the recipient of some good fortune of his own – the bats handed him a four-run lead before he even threw a pitch. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. doubled in a pair off former Blue Jay Daniel Norris in the top of the first, and two batters later, Tellez went deep. His 13th home run of the simulation tied Bichette for the club lead.

Yamaguchi didn’t look out of place as a starter, allowing only single over the first three innings, and didn’t give up a run until a Jonathan Schoop double (his first of three in the game) scored a leadoff walk in the fourth.

The Blue Jays got that run back in the fifth on an RBI single by Danny Jansen, and another in the sixth when Tellez singled home a run.

The Tigers finally knocked out Yamaguchi in the bottom of the sixth after consecutive one-out singles by Miguel Cabrera and C.J. Cron. Wilmer Font entered and immediately gave up a two-run double to Schoop before getting out of the inning.

In the ninth, Giles came in with to protect the three-run lead, working for the second straight day after barely having anything to do for two weeks. He gave up a leadoff double to Schoop (who else?) and Christin Stewart singled Schoop home with one out, but a couple of fly balls later the Blue Jays had a 6-4 victory and matched their longest winning streak of the season at three games.

Hyun-Jin Ryu was got the call the next day and, like Yamaguchi before him, was staked to a lead before he ever took the mound. This time it was Biggio with an RBI double. He was later singled home by McGuire to give the Jays a 2-0 lead.

The lefty gave one back in the first, as the Tigers started the inning double-single-single, but he shut down the rally there. Jake Rogers went deep in the second, though, to tie the game.

At that point, Ryu had had enough. He followed the Rogers longball by setting down the next 11 Tigers he faced and only gave up one hit between then and the eighth inning.

While their ace was doing that, the Blue Jays were being discourteous at best to Detroit relievers. Tigers starter Jordan Zimmermann had to leave the game injured in the fourth with a runner on, and Gregory Soto came in out of the bullpen. The first batter he faced, Bichette, smacked a two-run homer.

Soto lasted until the sixth, when he gave up a couple of hits and walked Biggio to load the bases. He handed things over to David McKay and the first batter the righty faced, Vladdy Jr., blasted a Grand Slam. While Bichette’s homer was his team-leading 14th of the simulation, the VladSlam was only Guerrero’s fifth home run. Better things are expected as the simulated season progresses, but this one was good enough to help the Blue Jays to their fourth straight win — they cubed the Tigers 8-2.

In the final game of the series, the Jays brought their brooms to the ballpark. It was the first time they had a chance for a sweep since April 1, the seventh game of the season, when they lost 12-2 to the Reds after winning the first two games of the series by identical 4-3 scores.

They didn’t waste this opportunity, once again scoring multiple runs in the first inning. This time it was a five-spot against former Blue Jay Matthew Boyd. It started with a Bichette single followed by a Biggio walk. An out later, Vlad Jr. singled in Bichette and Randal Grichuk followed with a two-run double. After Tellez popped up, Teoscar Hernandez powered up and belted a two-run shot to deep centre.

In three games in Detroit, the Jays scored 11 runs in the first inning. They had scored a total of two first-inning runs in their previous five games.

Roark gave a run back right away, hitting leadoff man Niko Goodrum with a pitch and giving up an RBI double to Harold Castro, but that was it and the Jays got him two more in the top of the second on a two-run homer by Gurriel.

It was 7-2 Blue Jays into the fifth when Roark gave up back-to-back two-out RBI singles to Cron and Schoop that allowed Detroit to bring the tying run to the plate, but the righty got Jeimer Candelario to snuff out the rally and escape with a five-and-dive intact.

The game never got that close again. Jansen added to the longball parade with a two-run homer in the sixth — only his second of the simulation — and Jonathan Davis cashed two more with a single in the seventh. It may not be much of a coincidence that Davis was in centre field for every game this week, providing above-average defence and speed in helping the Blue Jays build this winning streak.

After Roark left, Jacob Waguespack came on to provide three innings of one-hit shutout relief and Bass finished things up. The Blue Jays had an 11-4 win, their first sweep of the simulation and a five-game winning streak to cap a 5-1 week that lifted their record to a still-suboptimal 32-40 as the simulation approaches the halfway mark of a full season.

This week, the Blue Jays come home for a Monday off-day, then welcome the Tampa Bay Rays for three games before hitting the road again for some interleague action against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the first game against Tampa Bay, Shoemaker takes the mound to follow up his no-hitter.

The bearded righty has allowed a total of just one hit over his last two starts, totalling 16 innings.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games. Follow along every day on Twitter, @wilnerness590, to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

[relatedlinks]

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Baseball MLB TOR sn-article
Fred Thornhill/CP biggio-home-run biggio-home-run Blue Jays simulation: Changes to lineup spark offensive outburst Mon, 08 Jun 2020 16:42:46 EDT Fri, 12 Jun 2020 11:23:14 EDT Mike Wilner The Toronto Blue Jays started this past week by finishing what wound up being an abysmal road trip, but there were happier times ahead when they returned home to take on the Texas Rangers at Rogers Centre.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

The Toronto Blue Jays started this past week by finishing what wound up being an abysmal road trip, but there were happier times ahead when they got home.

Last week’s update ended with the Jays being swept in Baltimore and falling to 24-36 on the simulated season, a point that one would hope would be the low-water mark. They scored just twelve runs in the six games the week prior, leading to some lineup changes as they headed to St. Louis to begin the road trip.

Travis Shaw, the team’s OBP leader, was moved up to the second spot in the line-up, while Joe Panik was moved down to the bottom of the order. Patience had expired with Teoscar Hernandez and his sub-.200 batting average with only four home runs and a 36% strikeout rate. Reese McGuire, one of the lone productive hitters (.287/.357/.455) was moved into the fifth spot in the batting order and a more regular role while Danny Jansen struggled at the plate.

While the changes didn’t result in immediate wins, the offence definitely picked up against the Cardinals. In the opener of the two-game mini-series in Missouri, the Blue Jays got a hit in every inning, pounding out 13 safeties in total, but they only scored in one frame. After falling behind 2-0 in the first, Hyun-Jin Ryu kept it there until the Jays’ run-scoring fifth, which featured back-to-back home runs by Travis Shaw (with a Bo Bichette single aboard) and Cavan Biggio.

The one-run lead didn’t last long at all, as the Cards pounced on Ryu in the bottom of that same frame. It all happened with two out. With a runner on first, Paul DeJong tied the game with a double. Ryu followed by walking Yadier Molina, then Burnaby, B.C.’s Tyler O’Neill scored DeJong with a single to give St. Louis the lead and Dexter Fowler followed with a two-run double.

The Blue Jays had their chances the rest of the way – putting two men on in the sixth and loading the bases in the seventh, but couldn’t break through and wound up with a 6-3 loss with one game to go on the trip.

In the series finale, the Jays’ bats continued to show renewed signs of life. This time, they jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Carlos Martinez with an RBI double by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. in the first and a three-run rally in the third that featured a solo shot from Shaw and a two-run homer by McGuire.

But Tanner Roark, who came into the game with an ERA of 6.47, couldn’t hold the lead. He gave a couple back in the bottom of the third when Matt Carpenter took him deep with a man on, and suffered a great ignominy the next inning when, with two out, he gave up a go-ahead two-run double to the opposing pitcher.

The Blue Jays wouldn’t recover from that, losing 7-5 and finishing the road trip with only one win in eight games, having lost six in a row. Rarely has a day off been needed more, and the Jays got one before welcoming the hated Texas Rangers for a four-game series.

One roster move was made before the homestand started. It was the end of the road for Derek Fisher. The much-maligned outfielder played in both games in St. Louis and went 0-for-7 with six strikeouts, dropping his totals in the simulation to .108/.256/.123 with 29 strikeouts in 65 at-bats. He was designated for assignment, replaced by Billy McKinney, who was immediately placed in the starting line-up playing right field and batting ninth.

Here’s where things get weird. This is a baseball simulation we’re running here. It’s not random at all, since the results are based fully on what players actually did on the field in 2019. Yes, it’s a roll of the dice for every plate appearance, but the results of those dice rolls, on a percentage basis, are derived from each player’s overall 2019 statistics, as opposed to what they did game by game.

Last season, McKinney rode the shuttle from Buffalo to Toronto, being optioned and recalled three times each after making the team out of spring training. Each time he came back from Triple-A, he hit a home run in his first game back. The simulation doesn’t account for this, and (as far as I know) it hasn’t yet developed sentience, and yet…

McKinney hit a home run in his first game back from Triple-A.

It was a three-run shot, and the cherry on top of a big Blue Jays rout. McKinney’s homer came in the fifth inning and made the score 9-0 at the time. He added a run-scoring double in his next trip. McGuire and Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. got the blowout started with back to back two-run doubles with two out in the first inning, and Shaw later homered for the third straight game.

All this offence came with Matt Shoemaker throwing an absolute gem. The righty took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, having allowed just a single walk to that point, but the bid for virtual history ended with Danny Santana’s one-out home run in the seventh with another walk aboard. Shoemaker and Jacob Waguespack wound up combining on a two-hitter as the Blue Jays toppled Texas 11-3, scoring just one fewer run in the game as they had the entire week prior.

The next night, the Blue Jays were put in a deep hole early on as Texas put up a four-spot on Chase Anderson in the first. The Ranger rally started with two out and nobody on with a Joey Gallo double. Next up was Santana, and he hit a grounder to short that Bichette mishandled.

The error not only allowed the inning to continue, it opened the floodgates. Todd Frazier followed with an RBI single, then Anderson hit Nick Solak with a pitch and Isiah Kiner-Falefa ripped a three-run double. Texas had four – albeit all of them unearned – before a single Blue Jay grabbed a bat.

But in the bottom of the first, every Blue Jay wound up grabbing a bat. They pounced on an uncharacteristically wild Corey Kluber and knocked him out of the game quickly. Bichette led off with a double, and Kluber then walked the next three hitters, forcing in a run. Rowdy Tellez popped up for the first out of the inning, and McGuire followed with a Grand Slam to erase the deficit and put the Blue Jays on top 5-4.

From there, Anderson held the fort beautifully, allowing just two singles and getting through the requisite five innings despite the disastrous first. It was former Blue Jay Jesse Chavez who took over for Kluber and settled things down, putting up zeroes until the Jays finally knocked him out in the sixth with back-to-back doubles by Gurriel and Randal Grichuk.

In the seventh, after a Ronald Guzman error, Grichuk would blast a three-run homer to match McGuire’s four RBIs as the Jays rolled the Rangers once again, this time 10-5. The 21 runs scored over the first two games of the homestand exceeded the Blue Jays’ entire offensive output over their 1-7 road trip just completed by one run.

The big-time bats were shut down the next day, though, running into the buzzsaw that was Lance Lynn. The Rangers’ ace went the route, allowing just two runs on eight hits with 10 strikeouts against only one walk.

Again, the simulation knows nothing of the Toronto-Texas rivalry that began in the 2015 playoffs, and yet…

In the top of the second inning, Trent Thornton hit Todd Frazier with a pitch. No big deal.

In the top of the third inning, Shin-Soo Choo led off with a home run to open the scoring and, after striking out Elvis Andrus, Thornton drilled Joey Gallo with a pitch. Thornton was ejected and Gallo had to leave the game.

Shun Yamaguchi took over and got out of that inning without further damage, but gave up a two-run double to Guzman in the fourth and a two-run single to Andrus in the sixth. Texas broke the game open in the eighth as Sam Travis, who had taken over for the injured Gallo, drilled a three-run triple off of Wilmer Font. The Rangers would have a chance for a four-game split thanks to a 9-2 win.

Having run out the same starting line-up three games in a row (I mean, they scored 11 runs, then 10, so why would you change it?), the Blue Jays gave a bunch of regulars a rest in the series finale, hoping to utilize the off-day that followed to give Bichette, Biggio, Guerrero and Gurriel two days off in a row. Those four had carried a heavy load through the first 65 games of the simulation, with Bichette appearing in every game so far (though not having started them all), Gurriel in 62, Biggio 60 and Guerrero 59.

With the “B” team in, it would appear that Ryu had his work cut out for him, and the lefty held the Rangers off the board early until the Blue Jays struck in the bottom of the third. Jansen led off with a single but was taken off the bases by Brandon Drury’s fielder’s choice grounder. Jonathan Davis then hit a drive to deep centre that Santana crashed into the wall chasing. Davis wound up with a triple, scoring Drury, and Santana had to leave the game. Two batters later, Panik’s ground ball to short scored Davis to make it 2-0.

Texas got one back in the fifth on back-to-back doubles by Travis and Scott Heineman, who was called up with Gallo going on the injured list, but that was all they would get off Ryu, who went eight innings.

The Jays finally gave their ace some breathing room in the bottom of the eighth, knocking Texas starter Kyle Gibson out with a leadoff single from Panik. The Rangers went to lefty Brett Martin to face Shaw, but Bichette came off the bench and delivered a pinch-hit single. Grichuk then singled to score Panik and Tellez singled to drive in Bichette. Three batters faced for Martin, zero retired, and with a bunch of righties coming up, in came old friend Derek Law, who got Hernandez to ground into a double play, though that scored another run.

Ken Giles, having not had a save opportunity in two weeks, came out of the bullpen to finish it up despite the four-run lead and made things interesting. He issued a leadoff walk to Choo and Travis followed with a single before the Blue Jays’ closer struck out the next two hitters, but Matt Duffy singled to load the bases and bring Andrus to the plate as the tying run.

Andrus hit a fly ball to deep left field…run down by Teoscar Hernandez just in front of the warning track. The Blue Jays had a 5-1 win and took three of four from Texas over the weekend series to improve to 27-39 on the simulation so far.

This week, the homestand continues as Seattle comes to town for three games before the Blue Jays hit the virtual road once again, heading down the 401 to Detroit.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

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Scott Audette/AP blue-jays-rays-tropicana Blue Jays 2020 simulation: Struggles at Tropicana Field continue Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:52:58 EDT Mon, 01 Jun 2020 18:00:05 EDT Mike Wilner It seems as though the simulation is aware of the Toronto Blue Jays struggles at Tropicana Field as the team kicked off a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays before finishing off the month of May against the Baltimore Orioles.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

In real life, Toronto Blue Jays fans feel a sense of dread when their team is about to embark on a series at Tropicana Field. John Gibbons once famously referred to the home of the Tampa Bay Rays as a “House of Horrors”, and it feels like no matter how good the Jays are and how bad the Rays are, nothing goes well there. Never mind when the Rays are good and the Jays are bad.

It seems as though our simulation is aware of that, too, as the week that was began with the Blue Jays kicking off a three-game set at The Trop and, save for one inning, scoring a grand total of two runs over the three games.

In the opener, Blue Jays’ bats wasted a brilliant performance by Trent Thornton, who threw seven innings of two-hitter, allowing just one run. Problem was, the Jays only scored one run themselves – a second-inning solo shot by Rowdy Tellez.

From that point on, the Blue Jays managed just two hits, both by Danny Jansen, over the next nine innings before the Rays walked it off in the 11th off Sam Gaviglio. Hunter Renfroe walked, went to second on a ground ball to the right side, and scored on a single by Willy Adames for a 2-1 Rays win.

The next day, the script was the same. Starter throws brilliantly, the team only scores once in regulation. But at least there was a happier ending.

This time, it was Hyun-Jin Ryu who was tremendous on the mound, going nine innings and only allowing one unearned run, thanks to a Brandon Lowe sacrifice fly that followed a two-base error by Bo Bichette. The one run of support came from Bo, a solo homer off Yonny Chirinos in the third, so the Jays’ shortstop was even for the day, at least.

Remember how I said the Jays scored twice in the series save for one inning? That one inning was the tenth inning of this game. The rally started with two out and a runner on first against Jalen Beeks, pressed into action as the extra-inning long man after Tampa Bay used six different relievers to win the opener. Cavan Biggio singled off the lefty and Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. walked to load the bases, bringing Teoscar Hernandez off the bench to bat for Travis Shaw. Hernandez delivered a two-run single to put the Blue Jays on top, and Tellez followed with a three-run homer as he continues to go toe-to-toe with Bichette for the club home run lead in the simulation. The five-run frame gave the Jays a 6-1 win to even the series.

The big tenth-inning rally didn’t carry over to the series finale, though, as the Jays managed just five singles (two by Biggio), and only got two runners as far as second base in the entire game, stymied by Blake Snell and three Rays’ relievers.

Tanner Roark was pretty good, too, but he had one little bump in the road that was enough for the Rays to build the winning rally. The righty took a two-hit shutout into the sixth, having retired 13 straight Tampa Bay hitters, but he walked Joey Wendle with one out. Wendle stole second and, with two out, scored on a single by Yandy Diaz. That would have been enough, as it turned out, but Ji-Man Choi followed the RBI single with a two-run homer, just for good measure. A 3-0 Rays win gave them the series and the Blue Jays moved off to Baltimore for the weekend.

One could be forgiven for looking at a series against the lowly Orioles as a chance to pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off and start all over again. That’s because that’s usually the way it goes. The Orioles were awful last season and will be awful again whenever baseball starts back up. But that’s not the way the simulation went.

In the opener, the Blue Jays’ bats were stymied once again, this time by their former farmhand Asher Wojciechowski, who threw six innings of two-hit shutout before giving way to the bullpen.

Matt Shoemaker, who has been far and away the Jays’ best starter in the simulation so far, had allowed one run going into the sixth when he issued a pair of walks and a single to load the bases with one out. A ground ball scored an insurance run, then Chris Davis hit a catchable line drive to centre but Biggio, making a rare start there in an effort to boost the sagging offence, lost it in the lights for a two-run double that put the Jays down 4-0.

That mistake loomed large when the Blue Jays rallied for three runs in the top of the eighth, the big blow being a two-out, two-run pinch-double by Randal Grichuk.

Down by a run in the ninth, Hernandez drew a one-out walk and took an aggressive lead against Orioles’ closer Mychal Givens, who is very slow to the plate. And got picked off. Biggio followed with a single and not only didn’t get picked off but stole second and went to third as catcher Chance Sisco threw the ball away. With the tying run just 90 feet away, Guerrero grounded out to end a 4-3 Orioles win.

Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. was the hitting star of the middle game of the series. He doubled and scored (on a Guerrero single) in the first to give the Jays the early lead and, after the Orioles went ahead with a two-run rally in the fifth, homered in the sixth to tie it right back up. Guerrero followed the home run with a single, but that was the last hit the Jays would get.

Rafael Dolis, who had recorded four blown saves in his first 15 appearances in the simulation, came on to protect the tie in the bottom of the eighth and the first man he faced, Renato Nunez, took him deep. Later in the inning, a walk and a two-out RBI double by D.J. Stewart provided insurance the O’s wouldn’t need as former Blue Jay Miguel Castro threw a perfect ninth to preserve a 4-2 win.

Could the Orioles sweep away the Blue Jays? In a word, yes.

Thornton got off to a great start, holding Baltimore hitless for the first three innings of the series finale, including striking out the side in the third. But he completely lost it in the fourth inning. After a leadoff double by Anthony Santander, Thornton issued consecutive walks to load the bases with nobody out. He then threw a wild pitch, allowing a run to score. Then he threw another wild pitch, allowing another run to score. Then he hit the batter to whom he had thrown two wild pitches. Before Sam Gaviglio could get in to bail him out, the Orioles had a 3-0 lead, which was more than they would need.

The Jays’ only run of the game came on another Gurriel homer, his ninth of the sim.

The sweep in Baltimore dropped the Jays to 1-5 on the road trip that continues for a couple of games in St. Louis to open this week, and they wound up 11-18 for the month of May for an overall mark of 24-36 that translates to 99 losses over the course of a full season.

The problem, obviously, is the hitting. A .233 team batting average is far more than suboptimal, and the Blue Jays’ club OPS that’s barely above .700 is worse than every A.L. team but the 114-loss Detroit Tigers posted last year.

The simulation has been cruel so far, to be sure, with only Joe Panik and Travis Shaw outperforming their 2019 OPS and with several others, including Hernandez (.170), Gurriel (.143), Bichette (.117), Jansen (.110) and Biggio (.103) posting an OPS more than 100 points below what they put together in 2019. It’s fair to say that in real life, we expected all but Bichette to be better this season, and that’s only because Bichette set his bar so high.

So we know there’s more in there, and it should come out as the simulation moves along. It can’t come soon enough.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

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(Fred Thornhill/CP) blue-jays-diamondbacks Blue Jays 2020 simulation: Gurriel heats up as Toronto posts winning week Mon, 25 May 2020 11:32:59 EDT Mon, 25 May 2020 11:34:06 EDT Mike Wilner The Toronto Blue Jays put together a winning week but are still falling short of expectations in Mike Wilner’s simulated season.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

Had the 2020 season been played as normal, the Toronto Blue Jays would have hit the one-third mark this past week, which makes it really easy to see what numbers they would have been on pace for in our simulation – just multiply the attached counting stats by three (the rate stats would stay the same, of course).

What the heck, I’ll do some of the math for you: Bo Bichette is running the show. The sophomore shortstop is on pace to lead the team with 36 home runs, with Rowdy Tellez on pace for 30. Bichette would also top the club with 54 doubles, 102 runs scored, 102 runs batted in and, surprisingly, what would be a club-record 225 strikeouts. He’s also on pace for 201 hits, a mark that only four batters have reached in Blue Jays history.

Of the five members of the Blue Jays’ starting rotation, none of whom has yet missed a start (the simulation does factor in injuries but somehow the Jays’ pitchers have managed to avoid them), three have an ERA under 4.00 and the other two have ERAs over 6.50. So naturally, Chase Anderson (6.93) and Tanner Roark (6.70) are on pace to share the team lead with 12 wins, while Hyun-Jin Ryu (3.52) is on pace to go 6-18. Run support has been a serious issue. Ken Giles is on pace for 33 saves.

On to the games of the past week.

After their Victoria Day loss to the visiting dirty, dirty cheaters from Houston, the Blue Jays regrouped and came out swinging for the middle game of the series. It started in the second inning, when Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. led off with a double. Two outs later, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. singled him in. Gurriel is off to a rough start to the simulation, as is Teoscar Hernandez, and they were both dropped down to the bottom of the lineup. It paid off, as Hernandez belted a three-run homer later in the inning.

The Astros were hardly done, though. A two-run homer by George Springer cut the Jays’ lead in half, and they tied the game in the seventh. With two on, Guerrero threw away a slow roller by Michael Brantley to allow a run to score and Josh Reddick drove in the tying run with a sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Blue Jays exploded, taking advantage of a one-out error by Reddick. Bichette cracked an RBI double and was singled in by Joe Panik, knocking out reliever Brad Peacock and bringing in our old pal Joe Biagini, who got rocked.

Biagini walked Cavan Biggio, then gave up a single to Guerrero that scored Panik. Travis Shaw followed with a two-run triple and Reese McGuire then belted a two-run homer. Just like that, a seven-run inning for the Jays. Hernandez would add his second home run of the night in the eighth and that was that in a 12-4 Jays rout.

The rubber match was all Houston, though, as Justin Verlander dominated. Kyle Tucker’s two-run double off Trent Thornton with two out in the first turned out to be all the visitors would need.

The Blue Jays didn’t get their first hit of the game until Bichette led off the fourth with a home run, and they didn’t get another baserunner until the seventh, when they actually loaded the bases with nobody out, down 5-1 at that point. But Verlander struck out Shaw, popped up Danny Jansen (who was in for the injured McGuire) and got Gurriel to ground out to escape the jam.

Verlander wound up going the distance on a four-hitter, with 11 strikeouts, in a 5-1 Astros win.

With McGuire hurt, but not necessarily badly enough to miss 10 days, the roster move to get Caleb Joseph up to the big-league club was to designate A.J. Cole for assignment. The reliever had posted an 8.99 ERA working as a mop-up man in the back of the bullpen and was very likely to get through simulated waivers and remain in the organization.

The Baltimore Orioles came to Toronto next to open up a four-game weekend set and Ryu took the mound against John Means. In two prior starts against the lowly O’s in the simulation, Ryu had allowed 10 runs on 18 hits in just 9.1 innings of work. He was much better this time.

The Blue Jays went ahead in the fourth when Randal Grichuk’s single scored a Hernandez leadoff double. Grichuk was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Jansen’s fly to centre to end the inning, though. In the fifth, Ryu finally cracked, drilling Jose Iglesias with one out and then giving up a pair of singles to load the bases for Richard Urena. The former Jay delivered a game-tying sac fly and it stayed 1-1 into the eighth, when Austin Hays took Anthony Bass deep to put the Orioles on top 2-1.

The Jays couldn’t touch Means after scoring in the fourth – the lefty retired 13 of 14 and took the ball to start the ninth, where Gurriel got him for a leadoff double. In came closer Mychal Givens, and he struck out Hernandez before Grichuk played hero, crushing a two-run walk-off homer. It was Grichuk’s sixth big fly of the season and gave the Jays a dramatic 3-2 win to take the series opener.

There was far less drama the next night, as the Jays’ pitching dominated. Roark started and, with two out in the first, walked Anthony Santander, who was then doubled home by Renato Nunez. Roark didn’t give up another hit until the sixth – a single to Santander. That would be the last Baltimore knock as Roark, Bass, Rafael Dolis and Giles combined on a two-hitter.

It was tight right until the end, though. The Blue Jays didn’t tie the game until Guerrero’s single scored a Gurriel double in the fourth. They didn’t take the lead until the sixth, on a Gurriel solo shot. A couple of eighth-inning runs finally provided some breathing room in a 4-1 Jays win.

Matt Shoemaker has been the Blue Jays’ best pitcher in the simulation, with a WHIP of 0.93, and he got the ball in the third game of the series, trying to give the Jays a chance to go for a four-game sweep the next day.

He got an early lead as the suddenly-hot Gurriel tripled home Vlad Jr. in the second and held it until the fifth, when the Orioles put together a two-out rally thanks to a pair of former Jays. Urena struck first, doubling in the tying run. After a Hays single, it was Dwight Smith Jr.’s turn to strike. He singled in Urena to put Baltimore on top.

The Jays went back ahead in the sixth as Biggio homered, then Shaw doubled home a Guerrero single, and Bichette – who got the day off as a starter – came off the bench to smack an RBI double of his own in the seventh to make it 4-2.

Shoemaker had retired seven straight going into the eighth, but he issued a couple of walks around a strikeout of Smith and gave way to Dolis, who was not good.

Nunez greeted Dolis by singling in a run and Pedro Severino followed with a hit of his own to load the bases for Chris Davis, who Dolis walked to force in the tying run.

It was Dolis’ fourth blown save in only 14 appearances, and that was it for him. Sam Gaviglio came in and got a ground ball from Rio Ruiz, but it wasn’t hard enough for the Jays to turn two and the go-ahead run came in to score.

Bichette doubled again in the ninth to put the tying run in scoring position, but there was no walk-off rally coming this time, and the Jays’ sweep dreams were dashed in a 5-4 loss.

In the series finale, the Blue Jays placed an early call to Dr. Longball.

The Jays went deep four times in their first trip through the batting order against Asher Wojciechowski. Panik, Grichuk and Jansen each hit a solo shot, while Gurriel blasted a two-run homer to make it 5-1. An inning later Gurriel – who went 7-for-16 with six extra-base hits in the series – doubled in Shaw to put the Blue Jays up 6-1.

It was cruise control from there, pretty much. Baltimore got one back in the fifth but the Jays struck for three in the sixth, the big blow a two-run single by Biggio. It was 9-4 going into the ninth when things got hairy.

Jacob Waguespack, in for a second inning of relief, gave up a two-run homer to Stevie Wilkerson with one out to get Baltimore back within three. Before Giles could get warm enough to come into the game, Jose Iglesias singled and Waguespack struck out Smith for the second out.

In came Giles to try to close it out, and he gave up a double to Santander to bring the tying run to the plate in Nunez, who clubbed a fly ball to deep right field. Biggio caught it with his back against the wall to end what became a white-knuckle 9-6 victory, giving the Blue Jays the series and a winning week at 4-3.

The Jays hit the 54-game mark with 23 wins, which is a pace for a 69-93 simulated season. Again, the simulation uses 2019 numbers, so we’re not seeing what were expected 2020 bumps in performance from players like Biggio, Guerrero, Jansen, and even Grichuk and Hernandez. There’s also been quite a bit of bad luck on the Jays’ end, with all of the aforementioned (as well as Gurriel) performing well below their 2019 stats for the sim. We’ll see if things change as we move into the middle third of the simulated season. It begins with a three-city road trip through Tampa Bay, Baltimore and St. Louis.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

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blue-jays-lose Blue Jays 2020 simulation: Toronto struggles to find way on road trip Tue, 19 May 2020 13:26:26 EDT Tue, 19 May 2020 13:26:26 EDT Mike Wilner The Toronto Blue Jays dropped to 3-7 on their road trip and lost to the Houston Astros at home on Victoria Day as they moved to 19-29 in Mike Wilner’s Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant simulated season.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

Coming off a sweep at the hands of the Oakland Athletics that began a three-city road trip – a series in which they scored just three runs in three games – the Toronto Blue Jays headed southeast to the Lone Star State to take on their rival Texas Rangers at their new ballpark.

The bats that were missing out west made their way to Arlington as the Jays pounded out 14 hits (only two fewer than they’d managed while getting swept in Oakland) against Rangers’ ace Lance Lynn. Five of them were doubles, including RBI two-baggers by Cavan Biggio and Reese McGuire and a two-run double by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.

The offensive outburst backed eight strong innings by Hyun-Jin Ryu and got the lefty just his second win of the simulation as the Blue Jays snapped a three-game losing streak with a 5-3 win.

Tanner Roark got the start in the next game and was staked to an early 2-0 lead thanks to Travis Shaw’s two-run homer in the second inning off Corey Kluber. Roark, as has been the case in most of his simulated starts, ran into trouble and failed to make it out of the fourth inning, as Texas scored three in each of the third and fourth.

Robinson Chirinos, Shin-Soo Choo and (ugh) Rougned Odor all took him deep before Shun Yamaguchi took over and poured gas on the fire, hitting a batter and walking two others, one with the bases loaded. The Rangers had more than enough and would go on to a 10-4 rout, tacking on three more against A.J. Cole in the eighth. Interestingly, it seemed like the simulation was aware of the bad blood between the two teams (which, of course, isn’t possible from cards and dice), since Blue Jays’ pitchers drilled five Rangers’ hitters in the game.

Bo Bichette had a couple of doubles for the Blue Jays in the loss, and Guerrero had three hits.

A familiar refrain in the rubber match – the Jays got a phenomenal start from Matt Shoemaker. He went into the game having gone eight innings in each of his last two starts and having allowed a total of just five hits. He picked up right where he left off, taking a three-hit shutout into the eighth inning, but the lead was slim since all the Blue Jays could muster off Mike Minor was a two-run homer by Bichette in the third.

Choo had two of the three hits off Shoemaker, both doubles, and he led off the eighth with another, sending Shoemaker to the showers. Rafael Dolis came in and the Jays’ lead was gone awfully quickly. Elvis Andrus singled Choo to third, then Dolis walked Joey Gallo to load the bases for Danny Santana, who drove a triple into the gap. Dolis hit Todd Frazier with a pitch before leaving and Anthony Bass came in to clean up the mess, though one of the three outs he recorded allowed Santana to score. The Blue Jays got the tying run to the plate in the ninth, but that was it as Jose LeClerc saved a 4-2 Rangers comeback win to give Texas the series and drop the Jays to 1-5 on the trip as they headed to Chicago.

It was the Jays’ turn to come back in the opener of a four-game weekend series at Guaranteed Rate Field against the Chicago White Sox.

The home side started building a little picket fence against Chase Anderson, scoring a run in the first on Jose Abreu’s RBI double. They added a Leury Garcia RBI single in the second and then Edwin Encarnacion went deep in the third.

In the fourth inning, the Blue Jays woke up. Jonathan Davis walked and was doubled home by Bichette. A Gio Gonzalez error and a walk to Guerrero loaded the bases with two out for Randal Grichuk, who cleared them on a triple and put the Jays up 4-3. Sacrifice flies by Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. in the fifth and Davis in the sixth padded the lead, as did another RBI double by Bichette. Guerrero homered and the Blue Jays took a 9-5 lead to the bottom of the ninth.

Wilmer Font was asked to close it out, but Yoan Moncada took him deep with two out and then Abreu doubled, making it a save situation. On came Ken Giles, who gave up a double to Encarnacion to bring the tying run to the plate before slamming the door shut for his ninth save, a 9-7 Blue Jays win.

In the next game, pitchers were dropping like flies. Trent Thornton took an Abreu line drive off the knee in the third and had to leave the game trailing 1-0. Gurriel tied it up in the fourth with a leadoff homer, and it was still 1-1 when White Sox starter Dylan Cease called for the trainer with two out in the fifth and left the game. His replacement, former Blue Jay Jimmy Cordero, didn’t even throw a pitch before leaving the game hurt, but the rest of the Sox bullpen was terrific, holding the Jays to just three hits over the final 4 1/3 innings.

Chicago took the lead for good on a two-out, two-run single by super-rookie Luis Robert off Font in the sixth. Four runs off Jacob Waguespack in the eighth just added insult to the injuries in a 7-1 Chicago win.

Whoever took the third game would have a chance to win the series the next day, and it was a pitchers’ duel between a pair of terrific lefties. Dallas Keuchel gave up a home run to Bichette to lead off the game and was pretty much untouchable from that point on.

Ryu was nearly every bit as good, allowing an RBI single to Abreu in the third that tied it up and keeping it that way into the seventh, when he left with one out and runners at second and third, thanks to a pair of singles and a throwing error by Gurriel.

Bass took over and walked Moncada to load the bases for Abreu, and with the infield back looking for a double play, the White Sox slugger hit a ground ball to short. Too deep to throw home, not hard enough to turn two, and the go-ahead run came across.

The Jays finally knocked Keuchel out of the game with a ninth-inning double by Gurriel, but Alex Colome finished up to save a 2-1 Sox win.

The best the Blue Jays could do was a split as they got to the ballpark on a gloomy Sunday. The simulated teams played through what was very real, steady rain in Chicago and it was very clear the home side had no interest in taking part.

There was another pitching injury, this time to Lucas Giolito, who left after recording just five outs. Rowdy Tellez greeted reliever Carson Fulmer by putting one in the seats to give the Jays the lead. It was one of four home runs Fulmer would allow in his three innings of work, as Bichette, Grichuk and Shaw took him deep as well. Even Brandon Drury got in on the action, with a two-run shot off Kelvin Herrera in the ninth.

Roark threw five innings of three-hit shutout, wriggling out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth. He got his third win to tie Anderson and Yamaguchi for the club lead more than a quarter of the way through the season, but the five shutout innings only dropped his ERA to 7.57 over his ten starts. That’s still slightly better than Anderson’s 7.59.

Font, Waguespack and A.J. Cole finished up an 8-0 Blue Jays win, giving them a 3-7 road trip and a 19-28 record as they headed home for Victoria Day.

The visitors on the holiday Monday were those dirty, dirty cheaters, the Houston Astros. Having played the Sunday night game and then travelled from Texas for a day game in Toronto, Jose Altuve sat out the opener, along with George Springer, starting catcher Martin Maldonado and injured shortstop Carlos Correa.

Even short-handed, they were too much despite (allegedly) not knowing what pitches were coming.

The Astros loaded the bases against Shoemaker with two out in the first, and Josh Reddick delivered a two-run single. Biggio went deep against his pop’s old team to get one back, but the Asterisks got that back in the fifth on an Aledmys Diaz solo shot.

The first Blue Jay rally off Zack Greinke came in the bottom of the fifth. Shaw was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Tellez doubled him home with one out. Reese McGuire followed with a single and Bichette hit a slow roller to third that allowed Tellez to score the tying run.

Houston took the lead right back, as Yordan Alvarez knocked Shoemaker out of the game with an RBI double in the sixth. Sam Gaviglio came in to give up an RBI double of his own to Reddick, which doubled the ‘Stros’ lead. Dolis, Bass and Giles retired each of the last 12 Houston hitters to come to the plate, but the Jays got just two singles the rest of the way as Greinke went the route on a six-hitter, walking no one and striking out a dozen. Guerrero had half of the team’s six hits, all singles, but never advanced past first base in a 5-3 loss.

The week continues with the final two games of the series against the dirty, dirty cheaters, then the Baltimore Orioles visit for four games. At the end of this week, the 2020 season would have been one-third of the way over. Time flies when it no longer has any meaning.

Each Blue Jays game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually in the late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

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Baseball MLB TOR sn-article
Jamie Squire/Getty Images blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run blue-jays-bo-bitchette-hits-first-career-home-run Blue Jays 2020 simulation: Bichette hits skid as team drops five of six Mon, 11 May 2020 16:46:44 EDT Mon, 11 May 2020 18:36:51 EDT Mike Wilner The Blue Jays fell to 16-24 this week in Mike Wilner’s simulation, dropping their series against the Orioles and Athletics.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space.

You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball Powered By Pursue The Pennant, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game, with player performance based on 2019 statistics.

Things were looking up for the Toronto Blue Jays heading into last week. They had just taken two out of three against the powerhouse New York Yankees, and with the cellar-dwelling Baltimore Orioles coming to town, things looked promising for a continued climb toward the .500 mark, a place the Jays haven’t been in this simulation since they were 5-5 on the morning of April 6.

Then the games began.

Things started well, with a three-run homer by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the first inning of the opener against Baltimore. It was only Gurriel’s third home run of the simulation, a bit of a shock given that we’re almost a quarter of the way through the season. Also a bit of a shock – the lead didn’t last long.

The Orioles tied it in the third off Trent Thornton, with the big blow being a two-out, two-run double by Renato Nunez. Then they took the lead for good in the fourth on a two-out, two-run double by Dwight Smith Jr. It looked like the Blue Jays had a rally in them, as Travis Shaw and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. led off the bottom of the eighth with back to back doubles to cut Baltimore’s lead to one, but the final six Jays’ hitters were retired in order by Shawn Armstrong and Mychal Givens to secure Baltimore’s series-opening 6-5 win.

A win in the middle game would give the Blue Jays a chance to still take the series, and the ace was on the mound, though Hyun-Jin Ryu’s worst start of the simulation had come in Baltimore a week and a half earlier (three innings, five runs).

This time, Ryu was roughed up again, but it didn’t start until the fourth, when old Blue Jays’ nemesis Chris Davis snuck one over the wall with a couple of men on to give the Orioles a 3-0 lead. The Jays got back within a run in the sixth when they loaded the bases with one out, knocking starter Asher Wojciechowski out of the game. Rowdy Tellez drove in a run with a sac fly and Guerrero Jr. added an RBI single.

But it was pretty much all Baltimore from that point on. Anthony Santander got to Ryu for a two-run double in the seventh and Sam Gaviglio gave up a three-run homer to Austin Hays in the eighth. That was more than enough to counter Cavan Biggio’s RBI triple and a solo shot from Bo Bichette as the Orioles secured the series with a 9-4 win.

The series finale featured Tanner Roark, who had struggled to an 8.46 ERA through seven starts, twice failing to make it out of the first inning. He gave up back-to-back homers to Nunez and Chance Sisco in the top of the second to put the Blue Jays down early, but they got those runs back and more on one swing in the bottom of the frame. Randal Grichuk blasted a grand slam to give the home side the lead — and they rolled from there.

Grichuk drove in another run with a third-inning single to give him five RBIs on the night, while Gurriel Jr. and Tellez added solo shots.

Roark didn’t give up another run in getting through five innings, turning it over to Shun Yamaguchi, who tossed two perfect frames before falling apart in the eighth and having to be bailed out by Anthony Bass. Ken Giles threw a perfect ninth for his seventh save, as the Blue Jays staved off the sweep with an 8-6 win. They finished 4-5 on the homestand, losing series to the Red Sox and Orioles around their win over the Yankees.

After a day off for travel to the west coast, the Blue Jays opened a 10-game road trip with a weekend series in Oakland. In the opener, they wasted a brilliant pitching performance by Matt Shoemaker.

In his previous outing, Shoemaker had gone eight innings of three-hit ball against the Yankees, retiring 22 of his final 23 hitters in a 5-2 win. This time, Shoemaker was even better.

He started the game by retiring 17 of the first 18 Athletics who came to the plate, the only blemish being a fourth-inning walk to Marcus Semien. While he was taking a no-hitter into the sixth, though, Oakland lefty Jesus Luzardo had a one-hitter through his first six innings (allowing only a Jonathan Davis single in the third).

Shoemaker’s no-hit bid ended with two out in the sixth when Semien took him deep, and that would be enough for Oakland, though they added on in the eighth on Sean Murphy’s two-run homer (with a hit batsman was aboard).

Reese McGuire had a pinch-hit single in the ninth off Oakland closer (and former Blue Jay) Liam Hendriks, which gave each team a grand total of two hits. A complete-game two-hitter — but a loss — for Shoemaker, as the A’s took the opener, 3-0.

The Blue Jays had many more chances to score in the next game, but couldn’t take advantage, going just 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. The only hit in there was an RBI single by Teoscar Hernandez with two on and two out in the sixth – a rarity, as his batting average continues to sit below .200 in the sim, along with Rowdy Tellez – that cut Oakland’s lead to 3-1 at the time. That lead was built on a Matt Chapman RBI double and a two-run homer by Ramon Laureano.

There looked to be a rally in the top of the eighth, as the Blue Jays loaded the bases with one out on three Jake Diekman walks, but Joakim Soria came in to put out the fire.

It was a rough day for Bichette, who made two errors, struck out twice and hit into a double play. The Blue Jays fell, 5-1, and would once again go into the final game of a series looking to avoid being swept.

With Thornton on the mound against Oakland righty Frankie Montas in the Sunday afternoon finale, Bichette wasn’t in the starting lineup for the first time this season. Joe Panik – one of only two Blue Jays with an OPS over .800 in the simulation (no one is over .812) – played shortstop for the first time in his MLB career and wound up fielding the position flawlessly, having had only two balls hit his way all day.

For the first time over the weekend series, the Blue Jays had a lead! They loaded the bases with one out in the fourth and, after Hernandez struck out, McGuire delivered the big hit they’d been looking for for days, a double to right field. Two runners scored, but Travis Shaw was thrown out at the plate trying to make it three, ending the inning. Still, the Jays took a 2-0 lead and Thornton was dealing. Oakland got a Semien single to lead off the first inning, but didn’t get another hit until the sixth.

The sixth was an issue, though. Semien walked to lead it off, and after a Chapman groundout moved him over, Matt Olson tied the game with a massive home run to deep centre. Thornton then walked Khris Davis and was done for the day, with Wilmer Font taking over.

In 13 prior appearances this season, Font had been outstanding, posting a 1.53 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP over 17 2/3 innings of work. But this wasn’t a good day for him.

Mark Canha greeted the Jays’ righty with a double to drive in Khris Davis and give Oakland the lead. After a flyout, Font gave up two more singles, the second scoring Canha, before striking out Chad Pinder to end the inning.

The Blue Jays had one more gasp in them, though, as Hernandez led off the ninth with a double off Hendriks. One out later, a rare error by Chapman put the tying run on base.

With Brandon Drury scheduled to hit, the call went instead to Bichette, who came to the plate as the go-ahead run and…popped out. He still leads the team in runs scored and doubles, is tied for the lead in home runs (nine, with Tellez) and is third in OPS. Don’t get me wrong, Bichette has clearly been one of the shining lights in the simulation. He just had a rough couple of days.

The Blue Jays still had one shot left, but Hendriks struck out Biggio to end the game and complete the Oakland sweep with a 4-2 win.

It’s been a rough start to the road trip, as the Jays scored just three runs total over the three-game series in Oakland, hitting a collective .172 as a team to fall to 16-24, which is only slightly better than a 100-loss pace.

This week, the schedule takes the Blue Jays through the central time zone, with three games in Texas followed by four on the south side of Chicago.

Each game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played, usually around late afternoon for scheduled night games, early afternoon for day games – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season until (if) the real thing gets started!

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Baseball MLB sn-article
Jon Blacker/CP MLB-Blue-Jays-Grichuk-watches-home-run MLB-Blue-Jays-Grichuk-watches-home-run Blue Jays 2020 simulation: Split week in slugfest vs. Red Sox, Yankees Mon, 04 May 2020 17:19:45 EDT Mon, 04 May 2020 17:21:55 EDT Mike Wilner Last week would have been a tough one, with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees each hitting town for three games, and it was tough in our simulation as well.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space.

You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter, @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

Had the regular season been played as scheduled, the Toronto Blue Jays would have said goodbye to April and hello to May in the middle of a long homestand against divisional opponents. Last week would have been a tough one, with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees each hitting town for three games, and it was tough in our simulation as well, though the Blue Jays wound up splitting the six-game week.

It started with Chase Anderson being a victim of the home-run ball. Anderson has always had trouble keeping the ball in the park, but he generally hasn’t allowed that many homers with men on base, which has helped him stay in the big leagues. Not so in the opener of the Boston series, where Christian Vazquez victimized him twice – with a two-run homer and a Grand Slam. Those were the only runs the Red Sox would get in the game, but they were enough.

The Blue Jays trailed 6-3 into the bottom of the eighth when they started the inning with a Joe Panik double, followed by Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. singles, the latter coming with a Rafael Devers throwing error that advanced the runners. So it was 6-4 with runners on second and third and nobody out, but Rowdy Tellez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. struck out as Matt Barnes wriggled his way out of the jam and a scoreless ninth meant Boston took the opener 6-4.

In the next game, a Devers home run off Trent Thornton put the Blue Jays in a 1-0 hole in the first inning, but they responded with three right away off Martin Perez, thanks to a two-out RBI double by Gurriel that was followed by a Guerrero homer. It stayed that way until the fifth, when Devers tied it up with an RBI triple, but the Jays took the lead right back again as Panik’s grounder to first with the bases loaded cashed Randal Grichuk in the bottom of the fifth.

Sam Gaviglio, Anthony Bass and Rafael Dolis held that lead and handed the ball to Ken Giles for the ninth inning, where Devers played villain again.

The Sox third baseman, who drove in a record 28 runs against the Blue Jays last season, added to his big day with a game-tying, two-out solo shot off the Jays’ closer, already Giles’ third blown save of the simulation.

To extra innings we went, and Wilmer Font put up a zero in each of the 10th and 11th. With Jacob Waguespack warming up in the bullpen, Gurriel led off the bottom of the 11th with a triple. The Red Sox intentionally walked the next two hitters to set up a force at home, and with Grichuk at the plate, a passed ball by Vazquez allowed the winning run to score as the Blue Jays evened the series with a 5-4 victory.

The rubber match featured another Blue Jays bullpen collapse, but it didn’t involve Giles, since he’d pitched two days in a row.

Hyun-Jin Ryu was outstanding over eight strong innings of work, allowing just an early two-run homer to Jonathan Lucroy. Reese McGuire tied the game right away with a two-run homer of his own, and the Blue Jays went ahead with a three-run fifth that featured a Bo Bichette solo shot, a Biggio RBI double and a run-scoring single from Tellez.

Ryu came back out for the ninth inning, and Vazquez led off the frame with a line drive off the big lefty’s leg that knocked him out of the game. He won’t miss his next start.

Bass came in to face the bottom of the line-up, and gave up three straight singles to get the Red Sox back within a run. Dolis took over and got Andrew Benintendi to ground out, which put the tying and go-ahead runners at second and third with one out and Devers coming up. Nobody wanted any part of the slugger, so he was intentionally walked for J.D. Martinez, who drove in a pair with a single up the middle. When the smoke cleared, it was a five-run ninth and a 7-5 loss for the Blue Jays.

The powerhouse Yankees came to town next, and followed the Red Sox’s five-run ninth of Thursday with a five-run first on Friday.

Tanner Roark was the victim, failing to get out of the first inning for the second time in his short, simulated Blue Jays career. The righty started the game with back-to-back walks, threw a wild pitch, then (after a ground out) issued another walk to load the bases. Gleyber Torres followed with a grounder to short that Bichette booted, allowing a pair of runs to score, but Roark kept on missing the plate. He walked the next hitter to re-load the bases and after popping up Miguel Andujar, gave up the only hit he would allow – a three-run double to Mike Tauchman.

Shun Yamaguchi came in to clean up the mess, and wound up throwing 4.1 innings of two-hit shutout relief, but the hole was too big for the Blue Jays to climb out. J.A. Happ went six innings of five-hitter – two of those hits solo homers by Bichette and Gurriel – and the Yankees cruised to a series-opening 6-3 win.

There were some feelings of deja vu all over again as Matt Shoemaker struggled in the top of the first inning the next day, starting the game single-fly-out-single-walk to load the bases, and an out later he walked in a run, too, issuing the free pass to Luke Voit, which brought Tauchman to the plate with a chance to blow the game open again. But the similarities stopped there, as Shoemaker got Tauchman to fly to left to end the inning down 1-0 and then was spectacular the rest of the way.

A two-out Grand Slam by Bichette in the second inning was more than enough, as Shoemaker followed up that rough first inning by retiring 22 of the last 23 batters he faced in eight innings of the three-hitter, the only blemish a sixth-inning home run by Gary Sanchez. Giles pitched a perfect ninth for the save, so Blue Jays pitchers sat down 25 of the final 26 Yankee hitters of the ballgame.

Bichette added an RBI double in the fourth, so the shortstop drove in all of the Blue Jays’ runs in a 5-2 win that evened the series.

The rubber match looked as though it was going to be a slugfest early.

The Yankees got to Anderson for two runs in the top of the first on a Torres sac fly and a Voit RBI double, but the Blue Jays matched that and added another against Jordan Montgomery in the bottom of the inning. They loaded the bases with nobody out and Guerrero drew a walk to force in a run. Teoscar Hernandez then grounded into a double play, which scored the tying run, and Danny Jansen followed with a single to drive in the go-ahead marker.

The Jays doubled the lead in the second with three straight one-out singles by Jonathan Davis, Bichette and Biggio, and Anderson ducked and dodged Yankees baserunners through five. Gaviglio followed up with two perfect innings of relief.

With two on in the bottom of the eighth, Travis Shaw hit a line drive that Yankees left fielder Clint Frazier dove for and missed, handing the Jays some extra breathing room and allowing them to give Giles another day’s rest out in the bullpen. The 7-2 win gave the Blue Jays two series victories over the Yankees in as many tries so far in the simulation, despite their overall 15-19 record to this point.

The Blue Jays 2-1 in May after a 10-15 April (and 3-3 March), with the lowly Baltimore Orioles coming to town to finish off the nine-game homestand. After that, it’s the first west coast trip of the year.

Each game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season.

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Baseball MLB sn-article
Fred Thornhill/CP Rowdy-Tellez Blue Jays 2020 Simulation: Starting pitchers falter but bats come alive Mon, 27 Apr 2020 18:16:19 EDT Mon, 27 Apr 2020 18:16:19 EDT Mike Wilner A winning week for the Blue Jays featured unreliable starting pitching and some serious offensive pop from Bo Bichette and Rowdy Tellez.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

The Blue Jays were supposed to have concluded one of their two three-city road trips of the season last week. It was an all AL East affair, starting in St. Petersburg and then running through Boston and Baltimore. In the simulation, the Jays hit Fenway Park after dropping two of three against the Rays, having lost five of six overall and mired in a miserable team-wide hitting slump. But they woke up.

In the opener at Fenway, the Jays faced Eduardo Rodriguez, who had shut them out back on Opening Day. This time, they got to the Red Sox’ lefty right away as Bo Bichette led off the game with a walk and quickly came around to score on a Cavan Biggio triple. Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. followed with an RBI double and the Blue Jays were up 2-0.

The Sox got one back immediately, as Andrew Benintendi singled off Matt Shoemaker to start the bottom of the first. A Danny Jansen passed ball moved him to second, from whence he scored on a Rafael Devers single. But Shoemaker clamped down after that, allowing just one more hit into the sixth inning, by which time the Blue Jays had gotten that run back on a Randal Grichuk solo shot, his second of the season.

Shoemaker got two quick outs in the sixth, and then the roof fell in. Xander Bogaerts doubled and Mitch Moreland walked to put the tying runners aboard, and with the bullpen blazing away behind him, Shoemaker was left in to face Christian Vazquez. The Sox’ catcher’s two-run double tied the game.

The Blue Jays loaded the bases in the seventh but couldn’t score. Then they had runners at second and third with two out in the eighth, but Matt Barnes came in to pop up Grichuk, ending the threat.

With one out in the ninth inning, Travis Shaw pinch-hit for Derek Fisher and singled. Teoscar Hernandez came in to run for him, but all Hernandez had to do was trot as Bichette blasted his first home run of the week to put the Blue Jays up by a pair. Ken Giles made things dicey with a pair of two-out walks in the bottom of the ninth, but he struck out Devers to secure a series-opening 5-3 win.

The middle game in Boston was a terrific pitchers’ duel. At least for the first half of it. With Red Sox starter Nate Eovaldi having to come out of the game after facing just two hitters, the Boston bullpen matched zeroes with Chase Anderson into the fifth inning when, with two on and one out, Benintendi doubled to right to score Jackie Bradley, Jr. for the game’s first run. Jose Peraza was right behind him, trying to score from first, but Hernandez threw him out at the plate.

That seemed big at the time, but it wouldn’t be, as the Red Sox drove Anderson from the game with back-to-back two-out homers from Vazquez and Michael Chavis in the sixth and then scored three more against Shun Yamaguchi in the seventh, with Bogaerts going deep.

The Blue Jays had no answer, as they were shut out by half a dozen Boston pitchers. It was the fifth time in 24 games to start the season that they’d been held scoreless. And to add injury to insult, Biggio – making his season debut in centre field – collided with Hernandez on a Devers fly ball in the seventh inning and was out until the final day of the trip. With the 7-0 Red Sox win, there would be a rubber match!

In the series finale, the Blue Jays’ bats finally exploded, though they got some help. It was 0-0 going to the third inning, when Boston starter Martin Perez walked Danny Jansen to lead things off. Brandon Drury and Bichette each followed with singles and Joe Panik popped up. Gurriel was next, and he hit a ground ball to third that could have ended the inning, but Devers threw it away. A two-base error put a couple runs on the board and opened the floodgates. Three singles followed, one by Rowdy Tellez to drive in a pair, and a bases-loaded walk to Travis Shaw made it 6-0, Blue Jays.

Boston didn’t roll over, though, as Trent Thornton had a rough time handling the prosperity. The Red Sox got one back in the bottom of the inning and loaded the bases with one out before Thornton wriggled out of it. They got another back in the fourth and started the fifth with a single and a double to send the sophomore to the showers, unable to complete the five innings needed to get the win. Yamaguchi took over and, amazingly, kept the Sox from scoring by getting a couple of groundouts around a strikeout of Kevin Pillar.

The Jays added on to the lead in the top of the sixth on a two-run single by Hernandez, but Yamaguchi couldn’t answer the bell in the bottom of the inning, handing things over to Jacob Waguespack, who tossed two shutout frames. Wilmer Font did the same and the Blue Jays took the series finale, 9-2. It was just their second road series win of the season, the other coming in The Bronx.

The trip moved on to Baltimore, where the lowly Orioles were supposed to be easy pickings, especially with ace Hyun-Jin Ryu on the mound in the opener. Ryu was 1-4 to start his Blue Jays career despite having pitched brilliantly, because his team had scored a grand total of five runs over his five starts. This time, the bats were there, but the lefty wasn’t up to the task.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled in a run in the first inning, but Ryu gave it right back on a Hanser Alberto homer. The Blue Jays scored a pair in the second: Reese McGuire went deep and another run scored on a bases-loaded fielder’s choice grounder by Gurriel. Ryu gave those right back, too, on a two-out, two-run double by Stevie Wilkerson.

The Blue Jays didn’t score in the third, but the Orioles got two more off Ryu in their half, this time on a two-run double by Pedro Severino.

The Jays took the lead back with a three-run fourth that featured an RBI triple by Panik and run-scoring singles from Bichette and Gurriel, but Ryu was done for the night. Sam Gaviglio came on to provide three shutout innings of relief and the Blue Jays added two more in the fifth to move ahead, 8-5.

It stayed that way until the seventh, when Rafael Dolis — making just his second appearance as a Blue Jay since his spring training appendectomy — gave up a solo homer to Austin Hays. But it was still 8-6 Jays in the ninth, when Ken Giles came in to close it out.

Giles got two quick outs, then gave up a home run to Anthony Santander to move the Orioles within one. Next up was Renato Nunez, and he hit a routine fly ball to left field. Derek Fisher dropped it. Nunez got to second on the error. Severino followed with a single to left. Fisher charged it, and fielded it cleanly as Nunez got the wave home as the tying run, then threw it away. After back-to-back errors by Derek Fisher with two out in the bottom of the ninth, the game was tied.

In the tenth, Bichette led off by taking Mychal Givens deep into the Baltimore night to restore the Jays’ lead. But in the bottom of the inning, Giles came back out to try to finish it up and with two out and two walks aboard, Alberto doubled into the left field corner. Fisher’s throw home to get the trailing runner was late and the Orioles had a walk-off, 10-9 win.

After that wild one, we were owed a relatively uneventful game and we got it. Two-run homers by Bichette and Tellez helped the Blue Jays build a 4-1 lead into the seventh inning in the middle game of the series, and the only drama came in the bottom of that frame, when Tanner Roark coughed up a two-run home run to Rio Ruiz with nobody out to get Baltimore back within a run. But Wilmer Font came on to throw two innings of one-hit relief and, with Giles unavailable, Anthony Bass slammed the door shut with a perfect ninth. Roark would get his first win as a Blue Jay, and Bass his first save, in a 5-3 win.

That meant that there would not only be a rubber game to finish the series, but there would also be rubber game for the entire road trip, on which the Blue Jays were 4-4 to that point.

Shoemaker started the finale, and was treated to an early 7-0 lead as the Blue Jays pounded Tommy Milone. Tellez belted a two-run homer in the second, and had an RBI single in a three-run third on the way to a five-RBI day that included another two-run shot in the seventh inning.

Shoemaker, like Thornton and Ryu before him, couldn’t go the requisite five, though, falling apart in the fifth inning. After issuing a walk and throwing a pair of wild pitches in the fourth, he walked another in the fifth, but that was the only runner on with two out. That’s when things went sideways, as Dwight Smith Jr. singled and Shoemaker walked Santander to load the bases. He then hit Nunez with a pitch to force in a run, threw another wild pitch that scored another, then served up a three-run home run to Chance Sisco that cut the Blue Jays’ lead to just one. Waguespack came on to strike out Ruiz and end the nightmarish inning while the Jays still had the lead.

Bichette and Biggio hit back-to-back homers in the top of the sixth to restore a bit of breathing room, and the Tellez home run in the seventh gave the Jays a little more. For Bichette, it was his third home run in as many games and fourth of the week. Tellez’ two round-trippers gave him a team-leading eight. Rowdy also leads the team with 22 RBIs despite hitting only .207.

A 12-8 win in the finale gave the Blue Jays a 4-2 week, a winning road trip and a 12-16 record as they get set to wrap up the month of April by opening a nine-game homestand. The Red Sox are in first, followed by the Yankees and Baltimore.

Each game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season!

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Mark Blinch/CP Matt-Shoemaker Blue Jays 2020 Simulation: Twins, Rays create tough Week 3 for Jays Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:37:58 EDT Tue, 21 Apr 2020 11:14:19 EDT Mike Wilner It was another rough simulated week for your 2020 Toronto Blue Jays as they ran into a buzzsaw in the juggernaut Minnesota Twins, then had what feels like their usual tough trip visiting the Tampa Bay Rays.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

It was another rough simulated week for your 2020 Blue Jays as they ran into a buzzsaw in the juggernaut Minnesota Twins, then had what feels like their usual tough trip into their House of Horrors, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

The week began with the Blue Jays licking their wounds after a 1-0 loss at home to Kansas City, and those wounds got a lot deeper in a hurry. The Twins came to town – their all-time great slugging squad of last season bolstered by the addition of Josh Donaldson – and laid an old-fashioned pounding on the home side, scoring in each of the first five innings to build a 10-0 lead, and rolling to an easy 16-4 victory.

Donaldson was held in check, kind of, with “only” a single and two walks, but Nelson Cruz homered twice and drove in four and Luis Arraez had three doubles on a four-hit day, scored five times and drove in three.

Tanner Roark allowed five runs on eight hits over just 3 1/3 innings, and the bullpen was (clearly) no better behind him. The Jays didn’t score until the seventh, when they were already trailing by 11. Randal Grichuk and Rowdy Tellez hit back-to-back homers.

The middle game of the series was much calmer. A terrific pitchers’ duel, in fact. Matt Shoemaker gave up a run in the first inning, as Jorge Polanco doubled and was immediately singled home by Cruz, and then the righty went to work. After the Cruz single, Shoemaker retired 20 Twins hitters in a row, taking a two-hitter into the eighth inning.

But Kenta Maeda had held the Blue Jays’ bats in check, taking a two-hitter of his own into the seventh without having allowed a run. In that seventh inning, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. led off with a single and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went deep behind him to give the Jays a 2-1 lead, and it appeared as though Shoemaker’s incredible work would be rewarded.

Not so much.

Shoemaker gave up a double to Miguel Sano to begin the eighth inning, and an out later, Eddie Rosario singled him to third. That was it for the righty, and the call went to Sam Gaviglio, since he had been nearly perfect to that point in the simulation, while set-up man Anthony Bass was still trying to work his way back into the good graces after back-to-back blown saves the week before.

Byron Buxton hit a ground ball to shortstop. With the infield back, Bo Bichette couldn’t come home to try to cut down the run at the plate, and with Buxton’s speed, there was no double play to turn. Tie game. Arraez and Polanco then singled to bring in Buxton and put the Twins back on top.

The Blue Jays tried to rally, loading the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth, but Sergio Romo came on to strike out Gurriel and get Teoscar Hernandez to fly out (Guerrero had come out of the game in the top of the inning after hurting himself going into the dugout chasing a foul pop-up).

In the ninth, the Jays put men on first and second with two out, but Taylor Rogers struck out Joe Panik to preserve a 3-2 Twins win.

The Blue Jays tried to stave off a sweep in the series finale, but Minnesota got all it would need in the first inning off Chase Anderson, who allowed an Arraez double to begin the game, then after a strikeout, hit Cruz and gave up a single to Donaldson to load the bases. Anderson followed that up by walking in a run and then allowing a sacrifice fly to Sano. The Twins had two, the Jays would get only one. That run would come in the fifth, when Brandon Drury’s ground out scored a Panik triple.

Minny added on later with two-run homers by Jake Cave and Max Kepler and a solo shot by Donaldson, who went 3-for-11 with four walks in the series. The Twins swept away the Blue Jays with a 7-1 win, and now it was time to hit the road.

After a day off, the Blue Jays checked into St. Pete to begin a three-city road trip that would also take them through Boston and Baltimore, and it started with high drama.

Trent Thornton was magnificent, going 7 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run, but again, suffered for a lack of offensive support. A Hernandez homer in the second put the Jays on top early, but the Rays got that back as a Guerrero error loaded the bases with one out in the third. Ji-Man Choi followed with an RBI fielder’s choice ground ball to tie it up.

It stayed 1-1 until the sixth, when the Blue Jays caught a break as Bichette singled and moved up on a passed ball by Mike Zunino. He was able to score easily on a Gurriel single, but the Blue Jays had runners on the corners with one out and couldn’t add on.

Still, they handed a one-run lead to the always-reliable Ken Giles in the bottom of the ninth, and he got two quick outs before drilling Kevin Kiermaier with a pitch. Zunino was up next and, with the game on the line, he found the gap in left-centre for a double that easily scored the Rays’ speedy centrefielder to tie the game. A blown save for Giles was his first of the simulation, but the team’s fourth so far.

In the eleventh, Jonathan Davis (who had come in for defence to protect that one-run lead in the ninth) led off with a single off the Rays’ sixth reliever of the game, Jalen Beeks. He went to second on a Reese McGuire single and to third on a Tellez fielder’s choice ground ball. Next was Grichuk, who hit a fly ball to centre. Kiermaier caught it, Davis tagged and just beat the throw to put the Blue Jays on top.

Gaviglio came out of the ‘pen, seeking redemption, and found it (temporarily) with a perfect frame to seal the 3-2 win.

With Hyun-Jin Ryu taking the ball for the middle game of the series, the Blue Jays were in a great position to take the series, and the lefty delivered. Ryu threw a complete-game three-hitter, allowing just one run, walking only one and striking out ten. It was a magnificent performance, but you can’t win if you don’t score, and the Blue Jays didn’t.

While Ryu was twirling his gem, Ryan Yarbrough, Nick Anderson and Jose Alvarado were also combining on a three-hitter, and the Blue Jays never managed to get a runner past second base. Their best chance to score was in the seventh, when Gurriel knocked Yarbrough out of the game with a leadoff double. But Anderson came on to strike out Guerrero, get Hernandez on a routine fly and Jansen on a comebacker.

It was the third time in Ryu’s five starts so far this season in which the Blue Jays were shut out, and his second 1-0 loss. The Blue Jays are averaging one run of support for Ryu in his starts, which makes it not much of a surprise that he’s 1-4 to start his Blue Jays career, despite an ERA of 2.31.

The finale featured an old-fashioned Sunday line-up, with the entire bench of Davis, Derek Fisher, Drury and McGuire getting starts. After all, the regulars hadn’t done anything to earn playing time, with the team having scored three runs or fewer in six of the last seven games.

And it worked! At the beginning, anyway.

The Blue Jays pounced on Blake Snell for four runs in the second inning – matching their single-game high over the previous nine outings.

The inning started with Choi booting a Fisher grounder, but the bats took it from there. Tellez delivered a two-run homer and a few batters later, Panik drove in a pair with a double.

Roark was shaky again, as after being granted the four-spot he immediately gave one back on a Willy Adames RBI double, then loaded the bases in the second before popping up Austin Meadows to get out of it.

After the Blue Jays added a run in the fourth on a Panik triple, Roark allowed an unearned run in the bottom of the inning after a Guerrero error, as Meadows doubled in that runner. The Rays would again load the bases, but Hunter Renfroe grounded out to get Roark out of another jam. In his four innings of work, he faced 23 hitters, 11 of whom reached base, but he allowed just the two runs and turned it over to the bullpen.

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After the Panik triple, the Blue Jays would manage just one more hit the rest of the way. Not so for the Rays.

It was still 5-2 Toronto into the bottom of the seventh, when Gaviglio took over for Shun Yamaguchi, who had provided two scoreless innings of relief.

Gaviglio struck out the first two batters he faced, then everything came off the rails.

Adames doubled. Jose Martinez pinch-hit for Manuel Margot and singled to score Adames. Michael Perez doubled in Martinez to make it a one-run game and Gaviglio walked Brandon Lowe then gave way to Bass.

Bass gave up a single to Meadows that tied the game – his third blown save – then walked Yandy Diaz to load the bases before getting Choi on a comebacker. Six-straight Rays reached base, all with two out, to tie the game.

The Blue Jays couldn’t do anything in the eighth and stranded a two-out Biggio double in the ninth.

Wilmer Font came on to face the bottom of the Rays’ order in the bottom of the ninth, with Giles (who had only one day of rest after having thrown two innings) being held back in case the Jays took the lead in extras. And after all, it was the bottom of the order, right? Well, Kiermaier and Perez hit back-to-back doubles and that was that. Rays win 6-5 to take the series, and the Blue Jays fall to 8-14 on the simulation after a 1-5 week. This week – three each at Fenway and Camden Yards!

Each game is being simulated on the day it was supposed to have been played – follow along every day on Twitter @wilnerness590 to “watch” the simulated season!

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Blue Jays Spring Baseball Blue Jays 2020 Simulation: Ryu deals but gets little support in Week 2 Mon, 13 Apr 2020 16:29:20 EDT Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:00:29 EDT Mike Wilner What was supposed to be the second full week of the Blue Jays’ 2020 season didn’t turn out to be a great one for the simulated crew.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

What was supposed to be the second full week of the Blue Jays’ 2020 season didn’t turn out to be a great one for the simulated crew.

Fresh off a series win in The Bronx, the team headed south to Philadelphia for a pair of inter-league games with the Phillies. Hyun-Jin Ryu got the start in the opener, with two solid-but-unspectacular starts (13 IP, 5 ER — 3.46 ERA) in his SimJays career to that point.

Facing Phils’ ace Aaron Nola, it was a pitchers’ duel from the get-go, and the game went to the bottom of the fifth inning still looking for a first hit for either team, never mind a run.

Ryu was the first to blink, as Jay Bruce took him deep with one out in the bottom of the fifth, but the Blue Jays tied it up right away. Bo Bichette ended Nola’s no-hit bid with a leadoff double in the sixth, and two outs later, he was tripled home by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The tie didn’t last long, though, as J.T. Realmuto doubled to lead off the bottom of the sixth and was immediately tripled home by Bryce Harper. It was the first of Harper’s two triples on the night, both of which came as a result of Derek Fisher’s limited (D rating) range in right field and poor throwing arm (+2 to any base runner’s speed).

The Blue Jays threatened in the eighth, loading the bases with two out for Teoscar Hernandez, but Hector Neris struck him out.

Philly took the opener 2-1, and the Blue Jays continued to struggle to find the bats with Ryu on the mound.

The finale in Philadelphia started out as another great pitchers’ duel, this one between off-season free agent acquisitions Tanner Roark and Zack Wheeler, and it ended up a heartbreaker.

Roark, who came into the game with a 42.43 ERA, having not made it into the third inning in either of his previous starts, threw six innings of three-hit shutout with a walk and seven strikeouts. But the Blue Jays had only managed one run for him.

In the top of the seventh, National League rules reared their ugly head as Roark was due to hit with runners on second and third and one out. He was pitching brilliantly, but didn’t have much left in the tank and there was a huge opportunity to add to a slim lead, so Travis Shaw came out to pinch-hit and drew a walk to load the bases. That was it for Wheeler. Blake Parker got the call to face the top of the order and it didn’t go well. Bichette doubled to score a pair and Cavan Biggio followed with a three-run bomb to give the Blue Jays a 6-0 lead.

Cue the heartbreak. With the big lead, Jacob Waguespack came in from the bullpen. He left four batters later with the lead having been cut in half thanks to home runs by Rhys Hoskins and Bruce around a Realmuto single. Sam Gaviglio got out of the inning and handed things to Anthony Bass for the eighth.

Bass had been terrific as Ken Giles’ set-up man, having thrown 5 1/3 shutout innings and allowing just one hit. But he walked Scott Kingery to start the inning and Harper followed with an RBI double. A single by Segura put runners on the corners for Hoskins, who hit his second home run in as many innings. The 6-0 lead was gone, the Phillies were up 7-6. Their closer, Seranthony Dominquez, worked a perfect top of the ninth to secure the mini-sweep.

After a much-needed day off, the Jays came home to open up a four-game set against Kansas City with Matt Shoemaker on the hill for the opener. He’d been brilliant in two starts, going seven innings in each and allowing just one earned run total, and he was terrific again, though the Royals got to him for a couple in the fifth, erasing a 1-0 Jays lead. But the home side got it right back as Vladdy Jr. belted his first homer of the season in the sixth, a two-run shot.

Still 2-1 Blue Jays going to the eighth, Anthony Bass got the ball again, because after you get knocked off the horse, you get right back up on it. Unfortunately, the horse bucked again, as Bass gave up a leadoff homer to Hunter Dozier to tie the game. It stayed tied for a while, as after Bass left, Gaviglio, Giles and Wilmer Font combined to retire 16 K.C. hitters in a row, until the Jays finally walked it off in the bottom of the 13th when Rowdy Tellez singled home a Jonathan Davis double for a 4-3 win.

Plenty of scoring early in the second game of four, as the Royals got to Chase Anderson right away with a two-out rally in the first that featured an RBI double by Dozier and a run-scoring single by ex-Jays farmhand Ryan McBroom. But the Jays got one back in the bottom of the inning when Gurriel doubled home a Biggio triple, and they tied it up in the second on Danny Jansen’s RBI double.

The Royals took the lead for good, though, on an Alex Gordon sac fly in the third, and they added three more in the fourth when Shun Yamaguchi came in to get Anderson out of a jam, but gave up a two-run triple to Adalberto Mondesi (Raul’s kid) and wild-pitched him home.

The Blue Jays’ next chance to score didn’t come until the ninth when, with men on first and second and a run already in, Biggio belted one to deep right field that died at the warning track. The Royals held on for a 6-4 win to tie the series.

Next up, a pitchers’ duel that the Blue Jays finally wound up on the right side of. Travis Shaw led off the second inning with a solo shot against former Jays Rule 5er Glenn Sparkman, and that was all they would need. Trent Thornton dealt 7 2/3 innings of six-hit shutout, with 11 strikeouts, and this time Gaviglio was called on in the eighth to escape a two-on, two-out jam, not Bass. Gaviglio popped up Dozier, the Blue Jays added a pair in the bottom of the inning, and Giles slammed the door for his fourth save.

The Blue Jays had their first shutout win of the simulated season, and a chance to take the series and get back to .500 on the year in the finale.

The final game of the week saw Ryu get the ball again, and saw his team fail to score for him again. The Blue Jays loaded the bases with two out in the first off Brad Keller, but Hernandez popped up. They had two on and two out in the second when Biggio singled. Joe Panik got the wave home and was thrown out by Bubba Starling. The Jays wouldn’t have a runner touch third base again.

Ryu was brilliant, taking a one-hit shutout into the sixth, when he bent ever-so-slightly, allowing singles to Starling and Whit Merrifield. After he struck out Mondesi, Jorge Soler came up and singled up the middle, scoring Starling for what would wind up being the game’s only run.

Ryu went eight innings of five-hitter, and Bass finished up with a shutout ninth of redemption in a 1-0 loss to leave the Blue Jays at 7-9 in the simulation so far. In four starts, Ryu has allowed seven earned runs on 19 hits (and seven walks) in 27 innings. That’s an ERA of 2.33 and a 0.963 WHIP. He’s 1-3 because his team has scored a total of five runs in those four starts.

This week: Home to Josh Donaldson and the Twins for three, then south to Tampa Bay for three against the Rays! Follow along every day there’s a game @Wilnerness590 on Twitter!

Blue Jays Pitching Stats

Blue Jays Hitting Stats

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20921966 Blue Jays 2020 Simulation: Toronto recovers from slow start in week one Mon, 06 Apr 2020 18:08:56 EDT Mon, 06 Apr 2020 18:08:56 EDT Mike Wilner The Blue Jays’ offence has been up-and-down so far in this simulated season, but a pair of series wins over the Reds and Yankees pushed them back to .500 through 10 games.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to have been the 2020 season and providing weekly updates in this space. You can follow the games as they happen on Twitter @Wilnerness590. The simulation is being done using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

This is the first update since Opening Day, so we have a bit of catching up to do as we get set to begin what was supposed to be the second full week of action in the 2020 Major League Baseball season.

After the Toronto Blue Jays dropped the simulated season opener, they went on to lose the next two games as well, struggling to an 0-3 start to the season. Tanner Roark got knocked around for five runs over just two innings of work in a 10-3 loss in the season’s second game, and the Jays wasted a masterful performance by Matt Shoemaker the next day, failing to score a run in support of his seven innings of one-run, four-hit work in a 1-0 loss. The bats sputtered out of the gate, scoring only three times in the first three games combined, all of them in Game 2. To this point, Travis Shaw had the team’s only home run.

The Jays finally got things going in the finale of the four-gamer with the Red Sox, and in a big way. After falling behind 4-0, they exploded for six runs in the bottom of the fourth inning – on three-run homers by Rowdy Tellez and Joe Panik. They added a run each in the fifth and sixth and cruised to an 8-4 win behind three perfect innings of relief from Sam Gaviglio. Panik got the Sunday start to give Cavan Biggio a break, as Biggio had been off to a 1-for-11 start with nine strikeouts.

With the win, though, Panik wasn’t coming out of the lineup – or the second spot in the batting order – as the Cincinnati Reds came to town to open a three-game series.

The Blue Jays won the first two games by identical 4-3 scores, but in very different fashions. In the opener, Rowdy Tellez broke a 3-3 tie with a sixth-inning homer off former Blue Jays’ prospect Anthony Desclafani. Shun Yamaguchi got the win with 2 2/3 innings of one-hit relief of Trent Thornton. Teoscar Hernandez had tied the game with a solo shot in the third, and to that point was hitting .467/.556/.867 in his first 18 plate appearances of the simulated season.

In the second game, the Blue Jays struck early, taking advantage of a rare Joey Votto error that extended the first inning so that Tellez could come up with two outs and club a three-run double. In his second start, Hyun-Jin Ryu took a two-hit shutout into the 6th before giving up a two-run homer to Eugenio Suarez, but the Jays led 4-2 into the eighth, when Ryu allowed a leadoff solo shot to Nick Senzel. With set-up man Anthony Bass having pitched three days in a row, Wilmer Font took over for Ryu and was perfect, and Ken Giles finished up for his second straight save.

The Jays couldn’t complete the sweep though, as Roark was absolutely crushed in the finale. He managed to record only one out in facing eight hitters, allowing six runs on five hits. The big blows were a two-run homer by Votto and two-run doubles by Nicholas Castellanos and old pal Freddy Galvis. The Jays never recovered, as Thomas Pannone (2 innings, 4 runs) and A.J. Cole (back to back homers by Suarez and Mike Moustakas) got lit up as well, and it was 12-0 Reds before Tellez hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth to prevent the Jays from getting shut out a third time in seven games.

In his two starts so far, Roark has lasted just 2 1/3 innings, allowing 11 runs on nine hits for a 42.43 ERA. But one of the reasons the Blue Jays signed him is because he answers the bell, so he’s got another 30 starts or so to get things right.

The Blue Jays would have spent this past weekend in the Bronx, so that’s where our simulation wrapped up the week.

Another tremendous performance by Shoemaker helped to ruin the Yankees’ home opener. The righty went seven innings of three-hit ball and didn’t allow an earned run, but the score was tied 1-1 into the sixth when the Jays finally got to Masahiro Tanaka. Back-to-back doubles by Tellez and Hernandez put the Jays in front, and Randal Grichuk’s two-out single scored Hernandez with an insurance run. That was more than enough, but they tacked on another in the eighth on back-to-back doubles by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. After an inning each of perfect relief from Bass and Giles, Toronto wound up with a 4-1 win.

The middle game of the series saw all the runs scored in the third inning. The Blue Jays pounced on J.A. Happ for a five-spot that included a two-run double by Gurriel and RBI singles from Biggio and Grichuk, but Chase Anderson couldn’t handle the prosperity. With two on and one out, he gave up back-to-back home runs – a three-run shot to Gleyber Torres was followed by a Giancarlo Stanton bomb to get the Yankees back within one. After a walk, Yamaguchi took over, and things continued to go sideways. A wild pitch, a Guerrero Jr. error and another walk loaded the bases, then Yamaguchi hit Mike Ford to force in the tying run. The Yanks took the lead on a fielder’s choice grounder and added one more to make it a seven-run inning. The teams combined for just three hits the rest of the way in a 7-5 Yankees’ win.

The Blue Jays were trying to get back to .500 on the season in the rubber match, plus a series win at Yankee Stadium is always a good time, right? They got all they would need on one swing of the bat in the second inning – Bo Bichette went deep with two on to make it 3-0 and Trent Thornton and the bullpen took it from there. Thornton allowed just a run on six hits over seven innings, with 11 strikeouts, and Brandon Drury provided some insurance with a three-run shot of his own in the eighth. A 6-2 win left the Jays at 5-5 through the first 10 games of the simulated season.

Coming up this week, two games in Philadelphia, then a day off and four at home against Kansas City. Follow along!

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Fred Thornhill/CP bichette_1280 Blue Jays 2020 Simulation: Red Sox shutout Jays on Opening Day Thu, 26 Mar 2020 19:18:04 EDT Thu, 26 Mar 2020 19:27:21 EDT Mike Wilner In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to be the 2020 season.

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With sports on pause as the world tries to slow the spread of COVID-19, there are still ways to fill the void created by the lack of games. In order to provide a distraction from the much more serious things going on in the world, Sportsnet’s Blue Jays radio broadcaster Mike Wilner will be simulating each scheduled Blue Jays game in what was supposed to be the 2020 season. The simulation is created using Dynasty League Baseball, a cards-and-dice tabletop (and online) simulation game.

Game 1 – Toronto Blue Jays vs. Boston Red Sox, Hyun-Jin Ryu vs. Eduardo Rodriguez

The afternoon starts off very well for the Blue Jays prize lefty, as Ryu strikes out Andrew Benintendi, the first batter of the new season, part of a three-up, three-down first inning. Ryu would go on to retire 10 of the first 11 batters he faces, allowing only a second-inning double to Christian Vazquez that’s stranded right there.

The Blue Jays get a leadoff single from Bo Bichette in the first inning, but can’t cash him. The high drama strikes in the second when, with two out and a man on first, Rowdy Tellez belts a 410-foot bomb to straightaway centre field. Sox centrefielder Jackie Bradley, Jr. gets on his horse though, and scales the 10-foot wall to take a home run away from the Jays’ DH, keeping the score 0-0.

Boston hits the scoreboard first in the top of the fourth. Ryu’s run of 10 of 11 hitters retired ends when he issues a one-out walk to J.D. Martinez. After a Xander Bogaerts fly out, Michael Chavis crushes a ball that no outfielder was bringing back. The home run puts the Red Sox on top 2-0.

The visitors would add another run in the fifth. Kevin Pillar (yes, he’s starting in right field for the Red Sox) leads off with a double and is cashed by Benintendi’s two-out two-bagger.

All the while, the Blue Jays struggle to get anything going against Boston’s by-default Opening Day starter. Through the first six innings, the Jays manage just two Bichette singles and a pair of walks, failing to move a single runner past second base and striking out 11 times. Every single Jays hitter strikes out at least once, with Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. whiffing twice each.

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Ryu comes back out for the seventh, but issues a single and a walk and is pulled, replaced by another new acquisition, Anthony Bass, a right-hander who had tremendous success against left-handed hitters in 2019, holding them to a .165/.221/.304 line.

The righty plays true to form, getting switch-hitter Jose Peraza and left-handed bats Benintendi and Rafael Devers, all on fly balls, to maintain the deficit at three runs.

Randal Grichuk begins the bottom of the seventh with a single, becoming the first Blue Jay other than Bichette with a base hit, but after a Travis Shaw fly out, he’s erased on a double-play grounder off the bat of Tellez.

An add-on run for the Red Sox comes off Wilmer Font in the top of the 8th. The righty, who we should be seeing a lot less as an opener this season thanks to the Blue Jays’ additional starting depth, gets two quick outs but then allows back-to-back doubles to Mitch Moreland, pinch-hitting for Chavis, and Vazquez, putting the Sox up 4-0.

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Rodriguez does not come out for the eighth, the Red Sox deciding to leave well enough alone after the southpaw delivers seven innings of three-hit shutout with two walks and eleven strikeouts. Righty Ryan Brasier comes out of the bullpen, prompting a move to pinch-hit Reese McGuire for Danny Jansen. The move works, as McGuire delivers a double, and after Bichette strikes out, Biggio draws a walk to move the tying run into the on-deck circle.

With the Blue Jays’ 3-4 hitters coming up, Boston goes to set-up man Matt Barnes and the hard-throwing righty is more than up to the task, striking out both Gurriel Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to thwart the home side’s best chance to score since the second inning.

Font works his way around a couple of walks to put up a zero in the top of the ninth and Marcus Walden comes out to finish it up, allowing nothing but a Grichuk single in the bottom of the ninth, ending the game with back-to-back ground ball outs off the bats of Shaw and Tellez.

The Blue Jays just couldn’t get the offence going in the simulated opener, shut out by the Red Sox 4-0.

BOSTON AB R H RBI BB K LOB
Benintendi LF 4 0 1 1 1 2 3
Devers 3B 5 0 0 0 0 1 5
Martinez DH 4 1 1 0 1 2 2
Bogaerts SS 4 0 0 0 0 1 1
Chavis 1B 3 1 1 2 0 0 1
a-Moreland ph/1B 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Vazquez C 4 0 2 1 0 2 1
Pillar RF 4 1 2 0 0 0 2
Bradley, Jr. CF 2 0 0 0 2 0 2
Peraza 2B 4 0 0 0 0 0 4
               
TOTALS 35 4 8 4 4 8 21
               
a – doubled for Chavis in 8th              
               
E: Bogaerts              
2B: Benintendi, Martinez, Moreland, Pillar, Vazquez 2.              
HR: Chavis              
Team RISP: 2-for-15              
Team LOB: 8            
TORONTO AB R H RBI BB K LOB
Bichette SS 4 0 2 0 0 2 1
Biggio 2B 3 0 0 0 1 2 2
Gurriel, Jr. LF 4 0 0 0 0 3 5
Guerrero, Jr. 3B 4 0 0 0 0 2 5
Hernandez RF 3 0 0 0 1 1 0
Grichuk CF 4 0 2 0 0 1 1
Shaw 1B 3 0 0 0 1 1 3
Tellez DH 4 0 0 0 0 1 3
Jansen C 2 0 0 0 0 1 0
b-McGuire ph/C 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
               
TOTALS 32 0 5 0 3 14 20
               
b – doubled for Jansen in 8th              
               
E: None              
2B: McGuire              
HR: None              
Team RISP: 0-for-6              
Team LOB: 8            

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Baseball MLB BOS TOR sn-article
Ben Margot/AP bonds Why Walker, Bonds, Clemens are worthy of the Hall of Fame Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:31:49 EST Tue, 21 Jan 2020 09:31:49 EST Mike Wilner Mike Wilner shares what his Hall of Fame ballot would look like if baseball broadcasters were allowed to vote.

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Going into my 30th year covering MLB, I would love to be able to cast a ballot in the election for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but I get why broadcasters aren’t eligible. Many of them are team employees, which can definitely lead to bias. Of course, over the past decade, there has been a Hall of Fame vote cast for Jacque Jones, Aaron Sele and Carlos Lee, among others. Placido Polanco even got two! If that’s not bias, then I’m not sure what else one can call it. But that’s a debate for another day.

With many writers making their ballots public (including our own Jeff Blair and Shi Davidi), I’ve debated the merits of certain ones on social media. It’s not fair to critique without putting one’s figurative money where one’s keyboard is, though, so I felt it was only right for me to produce a pseudo-ballot of my own.

So, if they were to let me vote, here is how my ballot would have looked:

Derek Jeter (first appearance on ballot): Yes, the Great Yankee Captain absolutely belongs in the Hall of Fame. I have had my criticisms of him over the years – there was a time when he was legitimately the third-best defensive shortstop on his own team, his intransigence about moving down in the batting order ultimately hurt his team, and he’s not in the upper tier of all-time greats, though he’ll be celebrated as such. But he’s a Hall of Famer to be sure, and so there’s no reason not to vote for him.

Larry Walker (10th and final appearance – 54.6 per cent in 2019): It’s been wonderful to see the growth in Walker’s vote totals over the past couple of years, and there seems to be another surge this year that could hopefully get him over the hump. If players were still allowed 15 years on the ballot, he’d be in for sure, but this is his last shot with the writers.

Walker was a supreme six-tool talent (the sixth being the ability to think the game), and many who played with and against him say he was the best they ever saw. His numbers are beyond reproach: A career .313/.400/.565 hitter who was a defensive wizard in right field with a cannon arm and who ran the bases as well as anyone.

The only reasons not to vote for him are the fact that he was a Colorado Rockie, playing in the thin air of Denver, and that he got hurt a lot. But Walker’s career road OPS is higher than Ken Griffey Jr.’s, for one. Was Griffey a Kingdome/Cinergy creation? No one would ever argue that. Walker also averaged more games played per season than Willie Stargell, the great Pittsburgh Pirate, who was elected in his first year of eligibility.

Barry Bonds (8th appearance – 59.1 per cent in 2019) and Roger Clemens (8th appearance – 59.5 per cent in 2019): Although both have strong links to PEDs, Bonds and Clemens were head and shoulders ahead of their peers, many of whom were doing the same, with Bonds winning seven MVPs and Clemens seven Cy Youngs. I understand the controversy, and I get the desire to not reward cheating, but if Bonds and Clemens don’t get in then not only does what’s supposed to be a museum of baseball history have a giant hole in its story, but it also means we’re rewarding only the best cheaters. Those who didn’t get caught are in. I don’t know who did bad things and who didn’t, but neither does anybody else except the players themselves and those who aided and abetted them.

Tom Verducci, the great writer from Sports Illustrated, appeared on MLB Network on Monday afternoon and, in making a point about not voting for Bonds and Clemens, mentioned the fact that the Track and Field Hall of Fame wouldn’t want someone like Ben Johnson. He’s right, it wouldn’t. But that point makes my argument for me. Because while Johnson isn’t a member of the International Amateur Athletics Federation Hall of Fame, Carl Lewis most definitely is. Lewis, Johnson’s rival, won nine Olympic gold medals in his storied career. He also has admitted that he failed multiple drug tests at the 1988 Olympic trials and the results were covered up by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Better cheater (or better help cheating), still a hero.

Manny Ramirez (4th appearance – 22.8 per cent in 2019): It feels hypocritical to say yes to the better cheaters and no to someone who was really bad at it, like Manny, who was caught three times. Manny hit .312/.411/.585 with 555 career home runs and despite the fact that he was a terrible defensive outfielder, he would be a slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer had he been a smarter cheater. I don’t want to vote for him because of the suspensions, but intellectual consistency says I have to. It also says I have to plug my nose and vote for….

Sammy Sosa (8th year – 8.5 per cent in 2019): Why does Sosa lag behind Clemens and Bonds so much in the voting, when they were all superstars of the same era and caught up in the same scandal? I don’t know for sure, but it certainly feels as though Sosa was more of a steroid creation than the others. One could argue that Bonds and Clemens were Hall of Famers before the drugs.

Sosa, on the other hand, was a skinny, speedy kid who hit 37 homers in 394 big-league games over parts of four seasons to start his career, with a .662 OPS, before hitting 58 home runs the next two years, then embarking on a 10-year run in which he hit at least 35 every season, including three years with more than 60. I don’t want to vote for him, but I have to.

Four spots are left, and I will use them all. In alphabetical order:

Jeff Kent (7th year – 18.1 per cent in 2019): One of the best offensive second basemen to ever play the game. A career .500 slugging percentage and the all-time leader among second basemen in home runs and extra-base hits. Sure, he was a below-average defender, likely even well-below-average, but so were guys like Frank Thomas and Reggie Jackson, and Edgar Martinez didn’t even play defence. They’re all in on the strength of their bats alone, and so too should Kent be.

Andruw Jones (3rd year – 7.5 per cent in 2019): I look forward to future Hall of Fame debates when people start looking at how important run prevention is relative to run creation. For a decade, there was no better run preventer in the outfield than Jones, who was simply the best defensive centre fielder in the game. For me, his glove alone makes him Hall-worthy, but he also hit 434 home runs and had a career OPS+ of 116 (16% better hitter than average) until he fell off a cliff at the age of 30. If he retires after 2006, he’s in, so he should be in.

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Scott Rolen (3rd year – 17.2 per cent in 2019): There is an argument to be made that Rolen was the best third baseman of all time. When that happens, whether you win the argument or not, you’re a Hall of Famer. A superb defender, tremendous base runner and well-above-average hitter for his career (122 OPS+). Hurt a lot, but like Walker, played more games per season than Stargell.

Billy Wagner (5th year – 16.7 per cent in 2019): How is Trevor Hoffman in and not Wagner, who is right there with Mariano Rivera as the best closer ever? No one in the history of the game threw as many innings as he did (903) while allowing fewer base runners or striking out as many batters per nine innings. Over the entirety of his 16-year career, batters hit .187 against him. Yes, he gave up a post-season homer to Albert Pujols in 2006 that still hasn’t landed, but that can’t be enough to keep him out.

That’s ten, and my ballot is full. I considered Todd Helton, who posted great numbers with the Rockies over 17 years and had a strong .855 OPS on the road, but couldn’t squeeze him in. Omar Vizquel is interesting, with the whole run prevention versus run creation thing, couldn’t fit him either.

Gary Sheffield certainly has the offensive numbers, and while I’m forced to ignore the Balco stain, I can’t get over the fact that he admitted to making intentional errors in the infield while he played for Milwaukee in order to spite the official scorer, at least not when I have a full ballot. And if I can’t get past that with Sheffield, I certainly can’t get past Curt Schilling’s “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” post. Bobby Abreu also deserves consideration, and hopefully he gets the five per cent needed to stick around so can be considered on a less-full ballot.

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Baseball MLB sn-article
blue-jays-grichuk-win Blue Jays’ year-end awards: Toronto names Grichuk as its MVP Sun, 29 Sep 2019 17:57:00 EDT Sun, 29 Sep 2019 17:57:00 EDT Mike Wilner As the curtain closes on the Toronto Blue Jays’ season, Mike Wilner asked all the players, the coaching staff and some of the behind-the-scenes folks to cast their anonymous ballots for the annual end-of-season awards

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TORONTO, Ont. – The curtain is coming down on the losingest Toronto Blue Jays season in decades, but there are always rays of sunshine among the clouds.

I went through the Jays’ clubhouse over the season’s final week and change, asking all the players, the coaching staff and some of the behind-the-scenes folks to cast their anonymous ballots for the annual end-of-season awards. Each voter was asked to name their Blue Jays MVP, Pitcher of the Year, Rookie of the Year and Most Pleasant Surprise of the Season.

As always, I was struck by their thoughtfulness, the time they took to answer and by the fact that most wanted to share their reasoning with me. I continue to think it’s great that even with no actual piece of hardware to give out, the players and coaches want to make sure they’re picking the right guy. Except for one voter (who shall remain nameless) who didn’t take it seriously at all, and whose votes I didn’t count.

This was the most difficult of all the years that I have been taking this poll, and not necessarily for the same reason.

There’s always a great diversity of response to the Most Pleasant Surprise question, because it’s more subjective than any of the other ones. But Rookie of the Year was tough because there were so many rookies on the team this year and the ones who stood out the most weren’t in the big leagues all that long. As for Pitcher of the Year, well, the Blue Jays’ club leader in pitching WAR plays for the New York Mets right now. And MVP? Was there really a standout player over the entirety of the season?

One player had actually abstained from voting for club MVP, but after making his other picks he decided on someone for whom to cast a ballot.

Here are the results of the balloting. For the first time in a long time, all four categories went to people who have never won one of these awards before.

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Most Valuable Player

This was by far the most difficult category for the voters, as nine different players got votes, the most in the history of this particular award, including Freddy Galvis and Eric Sogard, who have been gone for two months but who most assuredly left their mark on the team.

In the final analysis, for most people it was the fact that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. only played half the season (84 games) and Bo Bichette, the club leader in OPS by 60 points, was only in the big leagues for two months that tipped the scales and determined the eventual winner.

He is the only player in Blue Jays history to lead the team in hits, doubles, triples, home runs, runs scored and runs batted in in the same season. Granted, some of that has to do with the fact that he also led the team in games played by 26 over his nearest competitor, but Randal Grichuk is the Blue Jays 2019 Most Valuable Player in the closest vote ever.

Pitcher of the Year

This didn’t turn out to be as difficult as I thought it would be. With Marcus Stroman clearly the team’s best pitcher for the first four months of the season, I thought people would lean towards him, even though he was dealt to Flushing in late July.

He was considered, but ultimately the overwhelming winner was the most dependable arm on the club, the closer. Ken Giles went into the season’s final game having been nearly perfect at the end of ballgames, with only one blown save, back on April 11th in Boston. Giles was sick that day, but took the ball anyway, and his pinpoint control eluded him as he walked two Boston Red Sox hitter unintentionally (and one more intentionally), then gave up the winning run on a chopped single that bounced over the head of Gurriel at second base.

Outside of that one performance, Giles posted an ERA of 1.54, a WHIP of 0.91 and 23 saves in 24 opportunities. That chilly April afternoon remains the only time Giles has blown a save since becoming a Blue Jay 14 months ago.

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Rookie of the Year

This was no contest. Despite the fact that he didn’t make his major-league debut until July 29th, Bichette simply blew the doors off. In just 46 games played before suffering a concussion in Baltimore last week, Bichette hit .311/.358/.571 with an astonishing 29 extra-base hits – a pace for 102 over a full season. He played in every game right up until taking that blow to the head and, over that short span of time, rewrote the record book.

Bichette started his career with an 11-game hitting streak, a new Blue Jays rookie record. During that streak, he also had a double in each of nine straight games, which no one had ever done before in major-league history, rookie or otherwise.

He reached base safely in his first 17 games, which is the second-longest streak to start a career of all-time (Rocco Baldelli reached in 24 straight with the 2003 Tampa Bay Devil Rays).

Bichette was the first player in history to record 10 extra-base hits in his first nine big-league games, and the first ever with 15 extra-base hits in his first 15 games.

His name was mentioned alongside Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, as his nine-game extra-base hit streak was the longest for a rookie since the Splendid Splinter in 1939. Twenty-nine extra-base hits in his first 43 games put him second all-time to the Yankee Clipper, who had 31 back in 1939.

And along the way, Bichette became the first rookie to homer twice against Hall-of-Famer-to-be Clayton Kershaw, walked off the New York Yankees with a called-shot 12th-inning home run and entrenched himself as the Blue Jays’ leadoff hitter, batting .381 to start a game.

This was supposed to be Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.’s year, but Bichette was an unstoppable force in his first look at the bigs.

Most Pleasant Surprise

There might be a little recency bias attached to this award more than the others, but when the guy who was the back-up to the back-up catcher and a career .239 hitter in triple-A comes up to the big leagues and rakes, well, that’s a pretty pleasant surprise.

Reese McGuire went into the season’s final day hitting .299/.346/.526, his OPS second only to Bichette’s on the team, and that is something that maybe only McGuire himself might have expected.

With his performance over the last month and a half, since coming up for the injured Luke Maile, McGuire has thrust himself squarely into the Blue Jays’ plans as not just a future back-up to Danny Jansen, but as a potential timesharing equal behind the plate, with a chance to snatch away the starting job for himself.

There were plenty of other great surprises for the Blue Jays, including Gurriel Jr.’s transformation to slugging outfielder with a great arm (he posted an .868 OPS, his numbers pro-rate to 38 homers and 96 RBIs over a full season and led the majors in outfield assists before he got hurt in August). Sam Gaviglio went from middling starter to a long reliever who posted four dominant months, carrying the load for the Blue Jays’ bullpen on the way to nearly 100 innings of relief.

Trent Thornton wasn’t supposed to make the team and wound up leading the club in starts, innings pitched and wins (only six, but no one won more). Jacob Waguespack had an ERA over five in triple-A and came to the majors to throw 78 innings with above-average results. Eric Sogard was a minor-league signing coming off a year in which he hit .134 and was released mid-season, and not only became the sparkplug of the Blue Jays’ offence from mid-April to late July, he got them back two young pitching prospects in a deadline deal. Clearly, nobody saw that coming.

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MVP:

Randal Grichuk – 15

Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. – 8

Bo Bichette – 7

Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. – 7

Freddy Galvis – 5

Eric Sogard – 2

Sam Gaviglio – 1

Ken Giles – 1

Justin Smoak – 1

Pitcher of the Year:

Ken Giles – 31

Sam Gaviglio – 8

Marcus Stroman – 3

Trent Thornton – 2

Derek Law – 1

Rookie of the Year:

Bo Bichette – 27

Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. – 12

Cavan Biggio – 2

Trent Thornton – 2

Danny Jansen – 1

Reese McGuire – 1

Most Pleasant Surprise:

Reese McGuire – 14

Sam Gaviglio – 5 ½

Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. – 4 ½

Bo Bichette – 4

Cavan Biggio – 4

Trent Thornton – 3 ½

Jacob Waguespack – 3 ½

Wilmer Font – 3

Eric Sogard – 2

Derek Law – 1

Justin Smoak – 1

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Baseball MLB TOR sn-article
Frank Gunn/CP lourdes gurriel jr fields lourdes gurriel jr fields Predicting the Blue Jays’ 2019 opening day roster Sun, 17 Mar 2019 18:35:16 EDT Sun, 17 Mar 2019 22:08:40 EDT Mike Wilner With opening day drawing closer, here’s Mike Wilner’s prediction for the Toronto Blue Jays’ opening day roster.

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DUNEDIN, Fla. – Less than a fortnight away from opening day – with far less Fortnite being played in the clubhouse – the roster that the Blue Jays will take north (to Montreal, then south to Toronto) to begin the season on March 28 is becoming more and more clear.

While the oblique injury to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. doesn’t affect the opening day roster, the injury to Devon Travis certainly does. Travis had his left knee flare up on him after a game against the Yankees on Feb. 25 and it was eventually found to be a tear in his meniscus, so he’ll be out until at least May.

Travis’ absence means that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. will be the Blue Jays’ regular second baseman, as opposed to bouncing all over the field, which was the original plan, and it also means the Jays need a utility infielder. That opens the door for either Eric Sogard or Richard Urena to make the team.

Both Urena (the 23-year-old kid with a couple of big-league cups of coffee to his credit) and Sogard (the 32-year-old vet with almost 2,000 big-league plate appearances under his belt) have gotten a lot of looks from manager Charlie Montoyo this spring, playing second, short and third and even moving to the outfield when the Jays have deployed four men out there.

Both have acquitted themselves very well both offensively and defensively, though Sogard has been ahead at the plate, showing the discipline that helped him to a .393 OBP in half a season’s worth of at-bats with the Brewers in 2017. In the field, they’ve both looked good, though Urena has showed some nonchalance on a couple of routine plays, leading to mistakes. That said, Urena is also more of the highlight-play type than in Sogard, who is still a very good defender.

The advantage in this race goes to roster flexibility. While Urena still has options, he’s on the 40-man roster and Sogard is not. For Sogard to make the team, the Jays would have to clear a spot on the 40-man, when they will already likely need to make room for a couple of relievers, so the numbers game definitely favours Urena, with Sogard backing up Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette and, eventually, Guerrero in Buffalo, ready to come up and help if the need arises with the big club.

That’s the only positional “battle” that still exists, and the starting rotation is set as well, so the rest of the roster comes down to the bullpen, and whether the Blue Jays will come north with seven relievers or eight.

If there’s a seven-man bullpen, that opens the door for the out-of-options Dalton Pompey to make the club and stay in the organization for at least little while longer. But with 19-year-old Elvis Luciano a more prized possession than Pompey at this point, it appears highly unlikely that the Jays go north without leaving extra room for the young righty in their ‘pen.

Ken Giles will be ready to go when the bell rings so there’s your closer, with Bud Norris and Ryan Tepera the primary set-up men. Tim Mayza has a spot, being the sole left-hander the Blue Jays will have in the relief corps. Luciano makes five, and that leaves three available. One is likely to go to John Axford, who has dominated in four of his five spring outings, and another will go to Joe Biagini, who can offer some length out of the bullpen.

The final relief spot, that will go to David Phelps when the righty is healthy (he is throwing bullpens, but has yet to appear in a game as he recovers from 2018 Tommy John surgery), should go to Sam Gaviglio, who has allowed just two runs on only seven hits over 14 spring innings, with 15 strikeouts. Danny Barnes, David Paulino and Trent Thornton are the other combatants for that spot, but with four of the Blue Jays’ five projected starters coming off seasons that were interrupted by injury, the Jays may need a lot of innings from relievers, especially early in the season. Gaviglio gives them a pseudo-starter in the bullpen.

So, barring injury over the final week and a half of spring training, here’s my guess for the 28 men (25 + 3 on the injured list) who will line up down the third-base line before the Blue Jays kick off the 2019 season at Rogers Centre against the Tigers on March 28:

Pitchers (13):

Starting Rotation:
Marcus Stroman
Matt Shoemaker
Aaron Sanchez
Ryan Borucki
Clayton Richard

Bullpen:
John Axford (needs a spot on 40-man)
Joe Biagini
Sam Gaviglio
Ken Giles
Elvis Luciano
Tim Mayza
Bud Norris (needs a spot on 40-man)
Ryan Tepera

Catchers (2):

Danny Jansen
Luke Maile

Infielders (6):

Brandon Drury
Freddy Galvis
Lourdes Gurriel, Jr.
Kendrys Morales
Justin Smoak
Richard Urena

Outfielders (4):

Randal Grichuk
Teoscar Hernandez
Billy McKinney
Kevin Pillar

Injured List (3):

David Phelps
Devon Travis
Clay Buchholz

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Baseball MLB TOR sn-article
Patrick Semansky/AP Justin-Smoak Blue Jays players, staff vote on team’s End of Season Awards winners Mon, 01 Oct 2018 08:26:45 EDT Mon, 01 Oct 2018 17:26:19 EDT Mike Wilner Here’s how the voting went down for the Toronto Blue Jays’ annual End of Season Awards — compiled by Mike Wilner, but selected by the players, coaches and front office staff.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the curtain comes down on every Blue Jays season — successful or otherwise — one of my great pleasures is to seek out every player on the team, every member of the coaching staff, the manager and the general manager, and ask each one to vote for the End of Season Awards.

Votes are allowed to be split — if you can’t decide on one winner, you can pick two and they each get half a point — and the only restriction is that a player cannot vote for himself.

Every year, those polled impress me with how thoughtful they are about their responses, how seriously they take the questions, and how much time they take to come up with the right answer, because they know that to win an award is one thing, but to win one that’s bestowed upon you by the people you “go to battle with” every day is a serious honour.

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This wasn’t a great year for the Blue Jays on the field, no question, but we did see some historic things: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. broke Shoeless Joe Jackson’s all-time rookie record by getting multiple hits in 11 consecutive games. Kendrys Morales fell one game short of the all-time record, but still set a big-league mark for switch-hitters by homering in seven straight. Rowdy Tellez burst onto the scene with six doubles in his first eight at-bats, along the way becoming the first player in the modern era to get an extra-base hit in each of his first three career plate appearances.

There were more lows than highs, but some pretty cool stuff happened in this Blue Jays season that had never happened before, and may never happen again.

Here’s how the voting went down for the Blue Jays’ annual End of Season Awards. Compiled by me, sure, but selected by the players, coaches and front office staff:

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

Winner: Justin Smoak
.242/.350/.407. Tied for club lead with 25 home runs, club leader in RBIs (77), walks (82), bWAR (2.3), OPS+ (122), WPA (2.6). Was one of only two qualifying AL first basemen with an OPS over .800 and the other one, C.J. Cron, had more at-bats as a DH than as a first baseman.

Player Votes
Justin Smoak 33.5
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 3
Randal Grichuk 1.5
Kevin Pillar 1

Smoak wins the MVP by an overwhelming margin for the second straight season, though last year none of his teammates garnered more than a single vote. Many players took a long time to come up with the answer — it was a tough year to pick an MVP — but almost all of them landed on the same name. One of the reasons some of the younger Blue Jays gave was that the switch-hitting slugger was the veteran rock in the middle of a lineup that kept getting more and more youthful as the season progressed.

Smoak found that odd.

“It’s weird to hear that,” he said, “because my first two years here I felt like the young guy.” Which would be natural, considering he was a part-time player in a line-up that included such luminaries as Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion. But, clearly, the times are changing.

Smoak had his breakthough season in 2017, belting a career-high 38 home runs and making the all-star team for the first time. Most baseball observers went into 2018 wondering if Smoak had established himself as a consistent middle-of-the-order threat.

“Honestly, I didn’t feel any pressure to do it again,” said Smoak. “You look at guys across the big leagues and they have those really, really good years and then in the years that aren’t great years for them, they still have good years. That’s something where you have to be consistent day in and day out, and I feel like I was able to do that this year, especially after the year I had last year.”

He was. Though Smoak didn’t reach the heights of his big 2017, he was a consistent middle-of the-order threat who played almost every day for the first five months of the season, until Tellez came up to share some time. Still, Smoak was the club leader with 147 games played.

And those late home runs. Smoak’s walk-off shot against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 20 capped a seven-run rally in the bottom of the ninth. It was the last home run he would hit this season, and his fifth of the year that came in the ninth inning or later, including a pinch-hit grand slam in Miami on August 31st.

Smoak has hit 15 home runs in the ninth inning or beyond over the past two seasons — no other big-leaguer has hit more than eight. What’s his secret?

Smoak doesn’t know.

“Those guys coming in for the last two or three innings, they’re no joke,” Smoak said. “I feel like it’s just a matter of having an approach or being able to barrel a ball in a big situation, and hopefully I can continue to do that.”

PITCHER OF THE YEAR

Winner: J.A. Happ
10-6, 4.18 with the Blue Jays in 2018. Even though he was traded to the Yankees at the end of July, Happ finished tied for third on the team with 20 starts, led the team in most strikeouts per nine innings and fewest walks per nine innings, and was second in ERA, FIP and bWAR behind Ryan Borucki.

Player Votes
J.A. Happ 23
Ryan Borucki 10
Ryan Tepera 4
Tyler Clippard 3
Seung-hwan Oh 1

For the first four months of the season, the classy veteran lefty was the cornerstone of the Blue Jays’ brittle rotation. The only one of the original five starters to avoid the disabled list, Happ was the Jays’ lone all-star representative. He was a great mentor to the younger pitchers even as he knew his days in Toronto were dwindling.

Reached via text in New York as his new team prepared to host the AL Wild Card game, Happ said learning that he’d won the award was “awesome.”

“I’m proud of that,” he continued. “It feels good to earn that from the players and coaches. Having their support and confidence always means the most to me.”

The young man who finished second in the voting, Ryan Borucki, was effusive in his praise for his teammate-of-a-couple-months.

“He meant a lot,” said the rookie southpaw. “You‘re just trying to be comfortable in a new environment and to have a guy like that take you under his wing is amazing.”

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR/MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE OF THE SEASON

Winner: Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
These awards get combined because the same guy won them both. .286/.314/.453. 11 HR, 30 runs scored, 35 RBIs in only 64 games played. 106 OPS+, 103 wRC+

Rookie of the Year Voting:

Player Votes
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 21.5
Ryan Borucki 11.5
Billy McKinney 2
Danny Jansen 1

Most Pleasant Surprise of the Season Voting:

Player Votes
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 12
Billy McKinney 8
Ryan Borucki 4
Rowdy Tellez 4
Aledmys Diaz 3
Tim Mayza 2
Sam Gaviglio 1
Teoscar Hernandez 1
Danny Jansen 1
Luke Maile 1
Kendrys Morales 1
Thomas Pannone 1
Devon Travis 1
“The Young Pitching” 1

The youngster from Cuban baseball royalty didn’t start the season with the big club, having missed all of 2016 fleeing Cuba and establishing residency elsewhere in order to get to the major leagues, and then suffering from various injuries that cost him most of 2017.

He arrived in the big leagues for the first time in late April and was optioned back down to Buffalo in mid-May. He returned briefly in June to cover a paternity leave, but didn’t get back to Toronto for good until July 2nd. He hasn’t looked back.

“It’s been very, very, very hard, my journey since I left Cuba,” said the 24-year-old through translator Josue Pelay. “But I worked really hard for it. You never expect to have a good season after all of that, and you never expect that most of it will be in the big leagues, but like I said, I worked very hard for it and I’m pretty proud of my accomplishments so far.”

The biggest accomplishment was an 11-game run in late July in which Gurriel had at least two hits in each contest. Over the course of the streak, which broke Shoeless Joe Jackson’s rookie record of 10 games and threatened the all-time record of 13 held by none other than Rogers Hornsby, Gurriel was as locked in as it’s possible to be. Over the course of the streak, he went 25-for-50 with three doubles, three home runs, six runs scored and eight RBIs — and he spent seven days on the concussion disabled list in the middle of it.

Gurriel had his patented big smile on his face the whole time (except for the concussion part), but “it wasn’t easy at all, because you have to strike the balance between helping your team win and having everybody tell you every day about these legends and that you might break a record.”

“It’s something that’s pretty, pretty hard,” Gurriel continued, “because sometimes you’re very anxious. You get out there and think, ‘I gotta get a hit, then I gotta get another one if I want to keep going.’ But at the same time, I gotta make sure that my team is winning, because if we’re losing I don’t want to get too excited about it. So having that happen to me for the first time was very difficult to handle at that time, but I’m not gonna lie, I was very impressed and very happy about it, too.”

And as far as winning two of the four End of Season Awards?

“I feel very happy,” beamed the rookie, “knowing that it’s the players and coaches that gave their votes. But I have to thank them first because it’s because of them that I had a good season. Because they supported me and they helped me a lot, not just with stuff on the field but also off the field.”

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