Royals shadow season simulation

Last week for Opening Day, Royals Review hosted a simulation on MLB The Show 20. The game against the Chicago White Sox was a heart breaker, as the Boys in Blue fell short losing 2-1. The video of the sim can be found here.

The two teams failed to score in the first 2 innings despite the White Sox threatening in the 2nd. Keller had the bases loaded with 2 outs and was able to strike out Encarnacion and Abreu to escape. KC rolled that momentum into a run in the 3rd inning when Nicky Lopez reached on a bunt single, moved to 2nd on a Maikel Franco walk, moved to 3rd on a fielder’s choice, and scored on a wild pitch. Somewhere Cyber Ned watched on and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“Just like I taught ‘em.” he said audibly to his good boy, Apollo (named after his true passion of space exploration).

The lead would only be temporary however, as the White Sox scored a run in both the 5th and 6th inning. Keller was pulled in the 5th after 86 pitches.

After the game Manager Cyber Mike Matheny said of a suspected pitch cap, “I wouldn’t call it a pitch cap; I’d call it more of a pitch hat because he wears the hat while he pitches, ya know?” confusing reporters. Rex Hudler interrupted the confusion with a casual “Hey man, I get it.”

The Royals could not muster anything further until the final inning after Hunter Dozier reached on an error with 2 outs. Jorge Soler lined a single to left on a 0-2 count to move Dozier into scoring position. Bubba Starling pinch ran for Soler representing the lead run. In a controversial move, Matheny allowed Ryan O’Hearn to face lefty, Aaron Bummer, to get the runners in despite having right handed soft platoon partner, Ryan McBroom, on the bench.

“Just like I taught him.” Ned said audibly to his good boy, Apollo.

O’Hearn worked the count to 2-2 before softly flying out to left field and ending the game.

Here’s a (blurry) look at the box scores if you’re into that sorta thing.

The Royals would go on to lose the next 2 games to Chicago (2-5 in Game 2, 2-7 in Game 3), starting the 2020 shadow season off by being swept; not ideal. They rebounded in Detroit taking both games, 7-4 and 4-2 respectively, leading us to the highly anticipated Home Opener against the Mariners.

For such an occasion, we will again stream a simulation of the game for you, beginning at the regularly scheduled time of 3:05. I changed a few of the settings so it should be closer to an actual broadcast. We will again have a game thread open to anyone wanting to take part in it. Come join us!

Also, let us know if this is something that we should keep doing. We could run an entire season simulation and stream a game of the week that was chosen by you guys. We could decide together if we should blow it up and rebuild, or become buyers at the deadline, or who to draft with the #4 overall pick in the June draft. Is that something you’d be interested in?

If you answered yes above, would you want some Royals Review writers to commentate/play the game FOR the Royals or continue the computer vs. computer gameplay?

Looking forward to seeing some sweet sweet baseball action with you all.