There was one scare in the offseason. Despite having turned off injuries, Bob Knepper broke his wrist falling down the stairs at home in January and was out for 2 months. No one else has hurt anything, so maybe it only allows injuries as long as it doesn't effect a player's availability during the season. I'll have to keep an eye on this.
One nice feature OOTP has is its preseason predictions. This allows us to see how things might go down during the season. In the Astros Division, Nacodoches is expected to win while Huffman looks to trail well behind.
I've seen these predictions be flipped completely during other sims, so time will tell if things actually play out this way.
I simmed two weeks to start the season, and will keep a similar schedule throughout the project with a goal of ending before the actual MLB season gets started.
Before getting to the standings, let's look at some of the highlights of the past virtual fortnight.
J R Richard pitched an Opening Day gem for the SeanBerry Shortcakes against the Delayed Honorees, throwing a complete-game, 5-hit shutout with 13 strikeouts and no walks.
On April 4th, Andujar Jar Binks 2nd baseman Craig Biggio went 5 for 6 against the Shortcakes with 2 doubles and a triple, leading his squad to a 15-3 win.
Kevin Bass was named Astros Division (AD) Player of the Week for week 1, hitting .536 (15 of 28) with 3 rbi for the Binks.
In the Colt .45s Division (C45), Ray Knight took home the Player of the Week honors, hitting .367 with 1 HR.
Mike Cuellar of the Master Batemans (Batemen?) pitched a 3-hit shutout against the Brick Red Meth on April 7th, striking out 8 and walking 3.
A day later, Shortcakes pitcher Joe Niekro blanked the Play-Alongs on 5 hits with 1 walk and 6 strikeouts. Niekro said "I kept them off balance. I could tell a lot of them were late on fastballs. They were fouling them off. Once you see that, it sets them up for other pitches. I set them up pretty good, where if they chased one breaking ball, they were going to chase another one."
The week 2 Players of the Week were Glenn Davis and Mike Cuellar. Davis hit .542 for the week with 2 HR, 9 RBI, and 7 runs. Cuellar went 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA, striking out 19 in 17 innings and allowing just a .105 average.
Now let's look at the standings and league leaders.
Pretty evenly matched so far, though the Binks are riding a 4 game winning streak to put a little distance on the rest of their division.
At the plate, Glenn Davis is clearly pacing the league at this early stage as he either leads or is tied for the lead in 13 categories.
On the mound, Cuellar and Richard are dominating the leaderboards.
So there we are after the first two weeks of the season. Is there anything you would like to see or hear about that I haven't covered? Leave a comment and I'll either answer you in the comment section or try to work your suggestions into future recaps.
