Simulated game?

[satchel]

What the heck is a simulated game, as in "Sterling Hitchcock pitched three innings in a simulated game, giving up 2 hits, two walks, and one run?" I just heard Charley Steiner say this on the Yanks broadcast, and it occurred to me that while I've often heard of rehabbing pitchers doing this, I don't really know what it means. I think I'd always assumed it was simulated game conditions - throwing off a mound, testing out all your pitches, throwing a certain number of pitches. But when I heard that Hitchcock had a line with hits and walks and so forth, I realized I don't have a clue what a simulated game really is.

[SmedIndy]

Basically, a simulated game is when a pitcher pitches to a couple or three of the scrubnees and it's treated like a real game in certain aspects, with an "umpire", and pitching from the stretch, etc. I don't think there's baserunning involved, but it's live ammo to live hitters.

[satchel]

Thanks Smed. So the bushers stand in, and try to hit his stuff, and then you do a kind of "ghost runner on first" thing like my brother and I used to do when it was just the two of us playing?

<fx = "johnny carson voice"> I did not know that. </fx>

[SmedIndy]

That's the way I understand it. But they don't have a pitchback to call ball and strikes and plays at the plate, like we did in my backyard.