The San Diego Padres (28-24) built an early 5-0 lead and made it stand up for a 5-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds (26-25) at Great American Ball Park.

That was the result today as Strat-O-Matic games of Glen Head, N.Y., continued its announced plan to simulate the entire 2020 Major League Baseball season on a day-by-day basis for as long as actual game play is on hold.

Help set the lineup, batting order for the simulated Reds:

Have you ever dreamed of your opportunity to “manage” the Reds? Now is your chance. Learn more below!

The sim Reds defeat ended a six-game winning streak, led by Redleg Nation commenter/manager Jon Davis. Adding injury to insult, Cincinnati’s MVP candidate Shogo Akiyama suffered another injury, his second this month, and will be out of action for eight games. He was injured while running out a ground ball in the seventh inning.

San Diego reached sim Reds starter Trevor Bauer, who was clearly not on his game, for five runs over the first three innings. Bauer walked five and allowed six hits. The Reds scored two in the bottom of the third on Akiyama’s seventh homer of the season, and then added two more in the fourth on a bases-loaded single by Freddy Galvis. But with runners on first and second and one out, Padres starter and winner Dinelson Lamet bowed his back, retiring Akiyama on a lineout and Mark Payton on a groundout to prevent any further runs from scoring.

As it turned out, there would be no further scoring over the final five innings, as both bullpens pitched shutout baseball. Over the final five innings, the Reds had no more than one runner reach base in any inning. There was a moment of hope in the bottom of the ninth inning when Galvis reached on an error by third baseman Manny Machado. But Padres reliever Emilio Pagan induced Curt Casali to hit into a game-ending double play.

Despite the loss, the sim Reds have won six of their last seven and nine of their past 11 games.

Akiyama will be placed on the 10-day injured list, and Redleg Nation readers will be asked to vote below on which player they believe should be brought up to replace him:

• Aristides Aquino
• Alex Blandino
• Derek Dietrich
• Travis Jankowski
• Scott Schebler

First-place St. Louis also lost, so the Reds’ deficit remains at two games. The Cubs beat the Brewers, resulting in both of those teams being also two games behind the Cardinals. Technically, the sim Reds have a one percentage point lead over the Cubs and Brew Crew for second place.

Here is the sim Reds box score, as provided by Strat-O-Matic:

B-Pinch Hit For Lamet In 6th Inning
E-Pinch Hit For Pomeranz In 8th Inning

A-Pinch Hit For Bauer In 4th Inning
C-Pinch Hit For Sims In 6th Inning
D-Subbed Defensively (CF) For Lorenzen In 8th Inning
F-Pinch Hit For Strop In 9th Inning

Standings following the May 23 games:

The 2020 schedule as currently constituted has the Reds playing game three of the four-game series against the Padres Sunday at Great American Ball Park. Anthony DeSclafani will pitch for the sim Reds, while lefthander Joey Lucchesi pitches for the Padres.

News/Notes from around baseball

One of the things we would have during the season in the game threads was a section comprised of news and notes for the day. While there’s a lot less going on these days in the baseball world than usual for this time of year, there still are some things that are worth highlighting. When there are, we’ll be adding them to these daily simulation threads.

MLB expected to propose a new economic plan on Tuesday

Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported yesterday that MLB is expected to propose a new economics plan to the MLBPA on Tuesday. There’s long been the rumor that MLB wants a 50-50 split with the players on the 2020 season among baseball revenue, but that has never actually been offered to the players. Maybe that’s what is coming, or maybe they’ve seen enough to know that it’s not going to be accepted and they’ve got something a little bit different in the pipeline. We’ll find out soon enough.

Major League Baseball plans to deliver a new economics proposal to the Players Association on Tuesday, sources said.

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) May 22, 2020

Fangraphs releases their Reds top prospects list

Eric Longenhagen got around to the Cincinnati Reds this week over at Fangraphs as they’ve been releasing their updated prospect lists. The top five guys in the organization are the same as everywhere else, just in a bit of a different order. But after that is where we start seeing some differences from the other lists we’ve seen. It’s a good read, though, so go check it out.

Help set the lineup, batting order for the simulated Reds:

Have you ever dreamed of your opportunity to “manage” the Reds? Now is your chance.

Strat-O-Matic has agreed to allow Redleg Nation to submit the Cincinnati Reds’ lineups for each day’s simulated game. We want all of our readers who want to participate to get involved.

Here is how it will work:

• In each wrap up of that day’s simulated game, Redleg Nation will post the opposing starting pitcher for the next game. You will know who the pitcher is and whether he is left-handed or right-handed, and you can use that information in creating a lineup for the next game, and submitting it in the comments below. “Splits” such as performance vs. left-handers or right-handers are replicated in the Strat-O-Matic game algorithm, and therefore should be considered.
• We will accept lineups from every reader who wants to submit one. The lineup that will be submitted to Strat-O-Matic each day will be the one that receives the most positive replies (in effect, “yes” votes) from readers other than the submitter. In case of ties:
  • First tiebreaker: Lineup submitted by the reader who has had the fewest number of opportunities as a “manager.”
  • Second tiebreaker: Lineup submitted earliest in the comment thread. (So get your lineup in “early” each day.)
• What is “early?” Redleg Nation posts these articles daily between 5 and 6 p.m. Eastern time. Strat-O-Matic’s deadline for us to submit a lineup for the next day’s game is midnight. On most days, we’ll do this before “bedtime,” which is typically between 10:30 and 11 Eastern time.

All players’ batting stats

All players’ pitching stats

Batting and pitching player stats by team

Have fun with this! If you have any questions, please post them in the comment string below. Here are the “managerial records” of our Redleg Nation participants to date:

About Strat-O-Matic

Strat-O-Matic has been in the sports simulation business since the 1960s. A USA Today article contained this explanation:

Strat-O-Matic and other baseball simulations use statistics from the previous season to create “cards” for each player on a roster. The team managers select the batting order and the starting pitcher. From there, a series of dice rolls and calculations determines the outcome of each at-bat.

Strat-O, as it’s known to longtime players, first gained its immense popularity as a board game. The company has since expanded to a downloadable Windows version and one that’s played online. A few years ago, it introduced Baseball Daily – a new iteration that combined the player cards from the previous season with statistics from the real season being played at the same time.

Unlike many video games, the Strat-O-Matic results are based on algorithms that account for players’ performance based on statistics that their statistical experts project for each player in the 2020 season. It’s not a game played with a joystick that relies more on the skill of the person with the video game controller in his or her hand.

The simulation software will keep comprehensive statistics for all teams for the season, so we’ll be able to track year-to-date leaders in many statistical categories. Our current plan is to provide statistical leader summaries here at Redleg Nation each Sunday. You can follow the season at Strat-O-Matic.com, where they plan to post the results from each day’s schedule at 2 p.m. Eastern time.