Virtual Baseball: Big Maple Falls on Angels! Stanton Executes Hit-and-Run Play!

James Paxton, the occasionally reliable Yankees ace, took it to the El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles Los Popladores tonight, breezing to a complete-game, 9-2 victory.

Luke Voit, D.J. LeMahieu, and Miguel Andujar all homered for the Yanks.  But the turning point of the game came in the fifth inning, when Giancarlo Stanton expertly worked a hit-and-run, grounding a ball through the wide-open right side of the infield, to score LeMahieu all the way from first.

After extensive perusal of the rule book—and consultation with the MLB Lord High Executioner's Office—the hit was ruled a legal way to advance a runner and beat the shift.

"Look, if everybody is just going to hit any way they please, then shifts simply aren't going to work anymore, and our quest to reduce baseball to a pure, mathematical concept will fail," Commissioner Rob Manfredmann implored Stanton and Yankees fans, who seemed quite pleased to see such a shocking innovation today.

Meanwhile, it was yet another loss for the stumbling Los Popladores.  Both the team and the former City of Los Angeles officially changed their names yesterday to avoid continuing lawsuits by the city of Anaheim.  In retaliation, Anaheim changed its name, too, but has refused to say what the new name is.