2020 MLB Season: Simulating AL games, June 1-4

For the Rays, the 2020 MLB season has been not too kind… until they met the Twins.

It’s been a frustrating first two months of the 2020 AL simulation for the Tampa Bay Rays. Given a pre-season chance to contend in the AL East, they spent part of the spring in the division basement, and enter June well off the pace in an underperforming division.

But in a three-game mid-week series against the AL Central-leading Minnesota Twins at Target Field, the Rays, at least at times, began to look like the team their partisans thought they would be. With two-thirds of the simulated season yet to be played, perhaps there remains hope.

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The Twins certainly took it to the visitors on Monday, lacing Yonny Chirinos, 4-4, and three relievers for 19 hits in a 17-2 runaway. Josh Donaldson homered and added four to his RBI total.

But the Rays bounced back Tuesday behind strong pitching from Charlie Morton, 4-5, who shut out the Twins 6-0. Morton allowed only three singles and struck out 11.

Then on Wednesday, spot starter Trevor Richards delivered a six-inning, one-run effort as the Rays won again, this time 7-3. Hunter Renfroe doubled twice and drove in two runs as Tampa tagged Jake Odorizzi with only his third defeat against nine victories.

The outcomes left the Rays seven games behind the division-leading Yankees, but that’s as close to the top as they’ve been in several weeks.

In other mid-week action, the Yankees took two of three in Seattle, while the challenging Toronto Blue Jays went to St. Louis and swept the Cardinals in a two-game series. Following the St. Louis games, the Jays returned home to open a four-game weekend series with the Texas Rangers, winning 5-1 on Thursday.

The Boston Red Sox took two of three from Cleveland, as did the Chicago White Sox in Kansas City. The Angels won two of three in Texas and the A’s took two of three from the Detroit Tigers in Oakland.

The Baltimore Orioles split a two-game series with the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, and the Houston Astros did the same at Citi Field in New York.