In Tuesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson asked home plate umpire Tim Tschida to examine the glove right-hander Joel Peralta for foreign substances.

Peralta was subsequently ejected for having pine tar on his glove.

This is not new. Baseball has a long history of players skirting around the rulebook in hopes of gaining an edge on their opponent. Whether it is spitting on the baseball, taking performance-enhancing drugs, corking bats, cutting the baseball, or even just (allegedly) having a man in white standing in the outfield bleachers, cheating is as much a tradition in baseball as hot dogs and cracker jacks.

As they say, if ya ain’t cheatin’, ya ain’t tryin’.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards: June So Far
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards: June So Far
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards, What They Are
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards represent an attempt to compensate for the influence of early season narratives, which — likely owing to a cogntive bias known as the primacy effect — are often quite powerful and can obscure more recent, notable performances. (Note: this was discussed in, like, 11% more depth recently in these same pages.)

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As the team’s hitting coach, Rick Eckstein arguably has the most important job on the Washington Nationals staff. The Nats are in first place in the National League East largely because of their pitching, and they probably need to score more runs to stay there. Only three teams have crossed the plate fewer time than Eckstein’s charges. It isn’t for lack of effort or direction. The 39-year-old Eckstein is well-respected and known as a hard worker, but injuries and a lack of proven veterans are large obstacles to overcome.

Eckstein shared his thoughts on hitting, and several of his hitters, when the Nationals visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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I think it was Earl Wilson who said baseball is a nervous breakdown, divided into nine innings, or something to that effect. I imagine the Atlanta Braves are starting to relate to that sentiment.

On May 20, the Braves beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-3 in rather classic Braves style — with a win, a hold and a save from Tommy Hanson, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel. They were 25-15 and stood atop the National League East by a game-and-a-half and appeared to be a serious playoff contender — if not the likely NL East champs. Since then, they’ve gone 9-16, they’re 4.5 games back of the Washington Nationals and they’re fighting to stay in contention for a wild card spot.

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There was no suspense as to whether Matt Cain would be the one to finally take a spot next to Johnny Vander Meer in the baseball record books with a second no-hitter in consecutive starts. Mike Trout banged a single to left on Cain’s third pitch of the night Monday against the Angels. Although Cain and the Giants won, the typically consummate righty was far from his sharpest. Cain walked four Angels and allowed six hits and three runs in just five innings. From perfect to not even quality? More common than you might think.

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We went for a nice family hike on Father’s Day. On the drive south toward the Santa Cruz mountains, we were listening to Marty Lurie’s show on KNBR before the Giants game against the Mariners. Lurie had a nice selection of audio cuts from players and coaches talking about the role their dads played in their lives. And then Lurie played a long interview with Giants manager Bruce Bochy. My ears perked up when I heard Lurie ask Bochy if he’s ever had to deal with a player’s father calling him up, complaining about playing time or raising other issues. Bochy chuckled and said he’s never had to deal with that. “One of the nice things about being a big-league manager is that the parents aren’t involved at this level,” Bochy said, or words to that effect.

I thought about Chris Lincecum and the role he’s played as a sometimes-consultant to Tim and pitching coach Dave Righetti. And I thought about Colby Rasmus and his dad, and all that went down in St. Louis before the Cardinals traded Rasmus to the Blue Jays last July. Then I turned off the radio and went on a nice, long hike.

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R.A. Dickey leads the Majors in strikeouts. He has more than Stephen Strasburg, more than Justin Verlander, more than Gio Gonzalez. Nobody in baseball has generated as many strike threes as R.A. Dickey. Since he has never done anything like this before — his next strikeout will actually match his 2010 total — people are asking him what he’s doing differently. After his second straight one hitter last night, Dickey was asked this again. His response:

“The strikeouts, you can look at FanGraphs or PITCHF/x or whatever you do to figure it out.”

Who are we to turn R.A. Dickey away? So, by order of the guy actually doing it on the field, let’s do just what he asked.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at Detroit, 19:05 ET (MLB.TV Free Game)
2. The College World Series: Still Happening
3. Today’s Complete MLB Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at Detroit, 19:05 ET
The Significance of This Game
This — so far as the author can tell — is the first game of the season to register a perfect NERD score of 10.

What Is NERD, For Those Who Don’t Know
NERD represents an attempt to measure the likely interest a player or team or game might have to the baseball nerd (which is probably you, by virtue of the fact that you’re reading this).

Links That Exist on the Internet
Click here for more information on Pitcher and Team NERD scores and here for how Game NERD Scores are calculated.

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