Major League Baseball is planning a virtual season on a popular video game, with Giants outfielder Hunter Pence and A’s pitcher Jesus Luzardo managing their teams and money donated to local Boys and Girls clubs in all big-league cities.
The league said the tournament will begin Friday. One player from each team will play a 29-game round robin over the next three weeks on “MLB The Show,” using the squads’ 2020 rosters. Each game lasts three innings.
The top eight players will advance to a postseason that begins April 30, with best-of-three Division and League Championship Series, and a best-of-five World Series.
The league will be live-streamed on MLB’s social-media accounts with standings and stats found on www.mlb.com/playersleague. The page has the schedule and links to watch on Twitch and YouTube.
MLB, the Players Association and San Mateo-based Sony Interactive Entertainment, which created and markets the game, will donate a combined $5,000 to Boys and Girls Clubs on behalf of each player, with the champion earning another $25,000 for the clubs in his commumity.
The teams will be grouped in their normal divisions.
Pence will compete in the National League West against Jon Duplantier (Diamondbacks, Gavin Lux (Dodgers), Fernando Tatis Jr. (Padres) and David Dahl (Rockies).
Luzardo will take on American League West competitors Ty Buttrey (Angels), Lance McCullers (Astros), Carl Edwards Jr. (Mariners) and Joey Gallo (Rangers).
“Hopefully I can bring home the trophy for the A’s,” Luzardo wrote in a text to Chronicle A’s beat writer Susan Slusser. “I play a good bit every few days with some friends of mine, but always with the A’s. And I’ve pitched using my character a few times, so we’ll see how it goes.”
In a story that ran in The Chronicle last week, Pence said he rediscovered “MLB The Show” only recently.
“I hadn’t played much since I was a kid,” he said. “This one I got into because we have a lot more free time. It’s really wild how real it looks, facing pitchers, their movement, even hitters anticipating movement.”
Reds pitcher Amir Garrett, who won a four-player “MLB The Show” tournament that included Pence, will represent Cincinnati.
Henry Schulman covers the Giants for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hankschulman
