Outfielder Dwight Smith, Jr. (yes, I remember his father playing in Baltimore in 1994, and suddenly all of my joints ache) is the team representative in MLB The Show's Players League, a round-robin video game competition with 30 major league players facing off against each other. Games are three innings in length, and are played in four-game chunks on pre-scheduled nights, with the contests streamed across several various social media hubs. There will also be a "postseason" for the top eight finishers. Each team's home city receives a $5,000 donation to a local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club, with an additional $25,000 going to the designated Boys & Girls Club in the league winner's home city. So it's all happening for a good cause, besides giving some baseball-starved athletes and fans a diversion.
Anyway, last night was Dwight Junior's Players League Debut, and it was a strong one. He won three of the four games he played, with victories against Tommy Kahnle's Yankees (6-5), Hunter Pence's Giants (2-0), and Cole Tucker's Pirates (1-0). The lone blemish on his record was a 5-4 heartbreaker to Blake Snell's Rays that featured a Mychal Givens blown save in the third inning and a Mike Zunino walkoff homer in the fourth. And wouldn't you know it, Smith hit a pair of home runs and drove in three runs playing as himself. He also went deep on behalf of teammate Trey Mancini twice, and once each for Anthony Santander and Chris Davis.
If you'd like to read a more detailed recap of Dwight Smith, Jr.'s successful gaming evening, Paul Folkemer has you covered at Camden Chat. If you want to live vicariously through Dwight himself, his next quartet of mini-games will take place on Thursday night, beginning at 9:00 Eastern.
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