They made it! (In Out Of The Park 21, at least.) But it wasn't easy by any definition of the word.
What's nice about sports video games is that you can do pretty much whatever you want. I was done with the real-life Nick Pivetta at around this time last year, and digital Pivetta was back in Triple-A after sputtering as a starter and as a reliever, so in-game in July I traded him and first-round flameout Cornelius Randolph to the Nationals for Michael Taylor and three minor leaguers. (And he just got traded IRL on Friday!) In good news, the equally enigmatic Vince Velasquez finally figured it out!
Taylor didn't last the month with us, as the return of McCutchen from another stint on the injured list, Adam Haseley rediscovering his batting stroke in Triple-A, Jay Bruce still being here, and us being out of the playoff race gave us an excuse to move some outfielders. Bruce was shipped to Tampa, while Taylor and Logan Forsythe were packaged in a deal that got us Garrett Richards from the Padres. I'm still not entirely sure how Richards was available with the Padres being assured a wild-card spot even at that point of the season. Maybe they didn't think they could re-sign him? Puzzling.
You'll also notice no Rhys Hoskins. Sadly, he never got out of his prolonged batting slump even after being sent down. Alec Bohm replaced him at first base, and I eventually sent Hoskins to Texas for two minor leaguers. Things still haven't gotten better for him.
So on August 1 we were 52-59. Haseley came back up and hit .320 in August and .367 in September. Gregorius was our hottest hitter, going for .354 and .367 and 13 of his 27 home runs. Richards went 2-2 in eight starts but only really had one bad outing before he suffered a partially torn labrum in mid-September. Ironically, he might have started the wild-card game against his former team had he not gotten hurt. That honor will now go to Velasquez. We went 36-16 in August and September, but lost our last two games in Washington to end up in a tiebreaker game in Washington. We won, 8-2.
The wild card appearance also means that I've already satisfied three of my owner goals -- extending Realmuto and signing a Local Player (Matt Sczcur; though promoting Phil Gosselin would also have counted for this.) The fourth is winning the World Series.
Also also, Reading won the Eastern League championship. So there's that.
