MLB The Show 17: Twins at Yankees AL wild card game sim
The Yankees will advance to take on Cleveland in the ALDS according to MLB The Show 17.
In a simulation of the American League Wild Card game on MLB The Show 17, the Yankees prevailed by a blowout score of 10-0 in Tuesday’s postseason-opening contest.
In what started off as a quintessential pitchers’ duel between Minnesota starter Ervin Santana and New York starter Luis Severino, it was a clutch home run by the Yankees’ Starlin Castro that began the rout.
The story of the game’s first half was Severino’s dominance of the Twins lineup. Through five innings of work, Severino hadn’t allowed a hit with eight strikeouts and was just a hit batsmen away from being in position for a perfect game on only 59 pitches in his postseason debut.
Unfortunately for Severino’s interests, his Twins counterpart was being nearly as effective against the New York hitters. Though the Yankees boasted more base runners, Santana’s timely execution with runners in scoring position kept New York off the scoreboard through four and a third innings as well.
Santana found himself in another such situation in the bottom of the fifth inning. He struck out Brett Gardner to begin the inning, then issued a free pass to Aaron Judge. After Gary Sánchez doubled to advance Judge to third base, the Twins decided to put Didi Gregorius on with an intentional walk to load the bases and set up a potential inning-ending double play.
Then, Starlin Castro took the plate with one out in the bottom of the fifth and the bases full of Yankees.
Santana would be able to get out of the fifth with no further damage, but his day would end at that point.
Severino, however, continued to dominate the Twins, plowing through the Minnesota batters in the sixth. Twins second baseman Brian Dozier would end Severino’s no-hit bid with a lead-off double in the top of the seventh, but Severino would be able to preserve the shutout through the balance of the half-inning.
Severino would also silence the Minnesota bats through the eighth to take his bid for a complete-game shutout into the ninth. The Yankees would add six more runs in the bottom of the eighth off Twins reliever Buddy Boshers to create a lot of room for error for New York reliever Dellin Betances. Betances would not need it, setting the Twins down in order to send New York to Cleveland.
The final line on Severino was eight innings, no runs on just one hit and no walks allowed with 12 strikeouts with a hit batsmen. Santana went five innings, allowing four earned runs on seven hits with four strikeouts and three walks issued.
The Yankees will play Game 1 of the ALDS in Cleveland on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
How true to the real results that the Twins and Yankees will play to on Tuesday night remains to be seen, but what’s certain is that baseball fans can’t get much more of a realistic simulation of the MLB postseason than that which MLB The Show 17 provides.