Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
New York AL at Toronto | 13:07 ET
Tanaka (99.2 IP, 82 xFIP-) vs. Estrada (117.2 IP, 117 xFIP-)
Toronto right-hander Marco Estrada, acquired recently from Milwaukee, has recorded among the lowest park-adjusted ERAs this season relative to his park-adjusted xFIP — trailing only Zack Greinke and Scott Kazmir by that measure, actually. “Is it a product of fortune,” one wonders, “or of skill?” The answer, as in most cases, is likely “both.” It’s the distribution of two that’s relevant — and the precise terms of which, like personal happiness or a father’s love, continue to remain just beyond arm’s reach.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
New York AL at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Nova (46.0 IP, 109 xFIP-) vs. Price (161.0 IP, 84 xFIP-)
There’s a barbershop on Rue Beaubien in Montreal, very close to where the author is currently staying in that city, that’s full perpetually of young Latin American men and which features — somehow also perpetually — a live broadcast either of a Blue Jays or Yankees game on the shop’s large flat-screen television. How the proprietors of this business have influenced the space-time continuum in such a way so as to facilitate constant live feeds of the two aforementioned clubs — this is an unsolved mystery. Of less mystery is whether, when walking past the shop tonight, the author will find the aforementioned flat-screen tuned to the Yankees-Blue Jays game. Indications are that he will.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at San Francisco | 22:15 ET
Strasburg (68.0 IP, 84 xFIP-) vs. Vogelsong (105.2 IP, 120 xFIP-)
Yesterday, for the first time, the author endeavored to participate in one of the daily fantasy contests such as those offered by DraftKings and FanDuel — a practice which, one notes, bears a strong and (welcome) resemblance to gambling. Gambling is not unlike drinking insofar as (a) it yields great pleasure in moderation but also (b) if you indulge in it to excess, your wife says to sleep on the couch. Impossible to ignore is how compelling a baseball game can become in proportion to the amount of one’s hard-earned he has wagered on the result of that game. It’s probably accurate to say, for example, that I watched Danny Salazar’s start last night with the sort of intensity typical of a terrier monitoring a backyard for squirrels or a pubescent heterosexual male monitoring any vaguely female human. Writing for RotoGraphs today, Brad Johnson suggests that Stephen Strasburg represents a strong investment in daily-fantasy play. The haphazardly derived algorithm which produces the NERD game scores here also appears to favor the Washington-San Francisco contest.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Zimmermann (141.1 IP, 102 xFIP-) vs. Kershaw (154.0 IP, 55 xFIP-)
The Nationals and Dodgers, both currently situated deep within the throes of postseason contention, have split the first two games of their important series at the latter’s home park. While, in a literal sense, the two clubs have actually participated in that pair of contests and thousands have gathered to observe them, the results have produced roughly the same effect as an alternate scenario in which neither game was played at all. Indeed, everyone involved could merely have stayed home — or dined out with friends at one of Los Angeles County’s excellent restaurants — and found the two clubs occupying basically the same place as today. Which, that awful reality noted, one notes furthermore that today’s game actually will produce a series winner, thus rendering the entire endeavor something slightly better than totally meaningless.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Ross (45.0 IP, 66 xFIP-) vs. Greinke (152.1 IP, 83 xFIP-)
Both Washington rookie Joe Ross and also San Diego right-hander Tyson Ross, who are brothers, feature sliders which currently sit within the league’s top ten by linear-weight runs among all starters — a notable accomplishment, especially, in the case of the former Ross, who’s recorded fewer than 50 major-league innings this season. Were the author capable of it, he would craft a long-form narrative piece exploring the implications of a family genetically predisposed to mastering this one pitch, considering both the practical kinetic explanations and also the more profound, nearly mystical, fraternal ones. Lacking both of skill and also tolerance for the sort of precision required by such an endeavor, however, what I’ve done instead is merely to produce this paragraph which invokes the possibility of such a piece. Less substantial, that, but also much less tedious for everyone involved.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Gonzalez (115.1 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Anderson (123.2 IP, 90 xFIP-)
It has come to the author’s attention that, at some point between last Sunday (when I began my week’s vacation) and this morning, Dodgers catching prospect Austin Barnes was optioned back to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Were I susceptible to hyperbole, I might suggest that this is the worst thing to happen ever. Recognizing, however, that the use of the superlative more often than not represents an assault on the imagination, I’ll merely suggest that it would have been a pleasure to observe Barnes in another major-league game. Nevertheless, this encounter offers other means of pleasure — in particular, by featuring two clubs for whom the result is totally relevant to their odds of reaching the postseason.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at New York NL | 20:08 ET
Zimmermann (128.2 IP, 104 xFIP-) vs. Syndergaard (86.2 IP, 80 xFIP-)
As he’s done in each of the two previous editions of this same daily exercise, what the author has done in this edition of it is to alter indiscriminately the NERD score of a game between playoff-contending division rivals to better reflect the consequences of that game’s result — and the opportunity for drama facilitated by those consequences. The division rivals in question are Washington and New York’s National League club, and I’ve taken the liberty of increasing the haphazardly derived score of their game from 7 to 8, thus creating a tie between that particular encounter and the one scheduled between the Angels and Dodgers (itself a promising matchup).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at New York NL | 19:10 ET
Ross (32.2 IP, 67 xFIP-) vs. deGrom (127.1 IP, 79 xFIP-)
Were the author better at anything, he would integrate into the haphazardly derived NERD algorithm some manner of variable to account for those games in which division rivals — both possessing some non-negligible chance of winning that same division — face each other. I am not better at anything, however, and so what I’ve done instead is to alter indiscriminately the NERD score for this Washington and New York rencontre. Unaltered, it receives a score of 8 — or actually just one point fewer than the Angels-Dodgers game. For those readers, meanwhile, who count themselves among the nerd orthodoxy and are prepared to abide by whatever game the haphazardly derived algorithm dictates, then observing a couple hours of Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout oughtn’t prove very difficult.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Kansas City at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Cueto (130.2 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Hutchison (108.0 IP, 100 xFIP-)
In reality, the present game receives a NERD score of 7 — which is to say, tied with a pair of other games on tonight’s schedule and actually a point behind the Angels-Dodgers game featuring Clayton Kershaw. Unaccounted for by the metric’s haphazardly derived algorithm, however, is how Johnny Cueto’s start for Kansas City this evening represents his debut for that club following a noteworthy deadline trade. In reality, projecting Cueto’s performance over the course of the season is a matter largely of weighting and combining data from his past performances — of which sort of mathematical alchemy Steamer and ZiPS are the product. Owing to how the dumb human mind works, however, this start — for better or worse — will function as a referendum on the wisdom of Dayton Moore’s decision to acquire Cueto at all. (Until Cueto’s next start, at least, at which point the process will repeat itself.) Accordingly, what the author has done is to alter indiscriminately the game score for this contest — to alter it sufficiently such that it becomes the most highly rated game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles AL at Houston | 20:10 ET
Shoemaker (97.0 IP, 101 xFIP-) vs. Kazmir (116.2 IP, 93 xFIP-)
Following consecutive victories over the Anaheimers, the Houstonians now possess both a one-game lead over and also slightly better odds of winning the division than those same Angels. The two clubs meet once again this evening — and unlike a family reunion, the reunion of the Angels and Astros tonight at Minute Maid Park will feature neither (a) baleful career advice from your uncle who had four whiskies already nor (b) sexually confusing encounters with your obviously attractive second cousin Donna. Also, the combination of Matt Shoemaker and Scott Kazmir holds some promise.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Radio.

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