Simulated Season: Tampa Bay Rays five back of Yankees in Al East

The Tampa Bay Rays had been on a run in the simulated season. Yesterday they dropped to five games back of the Yankees in the AL East.

The Tampa Bay Rays were one of the hottest teams in simulated baseball at Baseball-Reference’s OOTP 2020 season simulation.

The run included six-straight wins with two series sweeps over the Yankees and the Orioles.

Yesterday, Blake Snell took the mound for the good guys against Nate Pearson and the Blue Jays. Despite a fantastic outing from Snell, the offense could not support the lefty.

Snell faced off against a difficult Blue Jays lineup, which started five players with double-digit homers on the season. The first four batters all have more 10 or more homers thus far.

1. Bo Bichette (10 HR, 30 RBI)
2. L. Gurrierl Jr. (17 HR, 46 RBI)
3. V. Guerrero Jr. (19 HR, 43 RBI)
4. R. Grichuk (15 HR, 33 RBI)

Snell went six and two-thirds strong innings, striking out nine, walking none, and allowing two runs on six hits. Unfortunately, the offense just couldn’t put anything together against four different pitchers for the Jays.

Snell lowered his ERA to 4.25 on the season and dropped to 4-3 record on the season while not making any remarks about getting his money or having to comment on a disagreement over pay structure in this simulated season.

Colin Poche continued his stellar work out of the pen, picking up the final out of the seventh inning and the first out of the eighth. Despite walking two, he struck out one and lowered his ERA to 2.03 on 15 pitches.

Nick Anderson got some work in a non-save situation, but kept it a one-run game in the ninth. Anderson added to his strikeout total with two more Ks in one inning of work. He now boasts a 3.18 ERA on the season.

After a going 17-3 since May 8, the Rays have now lost their past five games, with each loss at the hands of a losing team.

They look to get back on track today in the final game of the set against the Blue Jays.