Winston Churchill, were he alive, would be confounded by Luis Valbuena.

Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Detroit (2) | 13:05 ET
• Rookie Jason Kipnis, in case you hadn’t heard, was placed on the 15-DL on Friday.
• With Orlando Cabrera gone, that leaves 25-year-old semi-enigma Luis Valbuena to pick up the majority of second-base starts.
• Luis Valbuena, Triple-A: 883 PA, .302/.388/.470.
• Luis Valbuena, Major Leagues: 791 PA, .223/.283/.340.
• Semi-enigma!

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Cleveland Radio?

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.6.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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This stuff is probably less impressive than Arizona débutante Wade Miley’s.

Featured Game
Arizona (9) at Atlanta (4) | 19:10 ET
• Left-hander Wade Miley, 24, makes his major-league debut tonight in place of the recently acquired — and even more recently injured — Jason Marquis.
• Which, one weird thing about Miley is how he posted considerably better numbers at Triple-A this season (54.1 IP, 9.28 K/9, 2.65 BB/9, 0.66 HR/9, 2.98 FIP) than he did at Double-A (75.1 IP, 5.50 K/9, 3.35 BB/9, 0.72 HR/9, 4.25 FIP).
• This, despite the fact that both the league and the park in which the Double-A Mobile BayBears play is pitcher-friendlier than the equivalents for Triple-A Reno.
• In his scouting report on Miley from back in February, Prospect Maven Marc Hulet suggests that Miley’s strikeout numbers have generally lagged behind his stuff.
• And by “stuff” I’m assuming Hulet means his pitches.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Braves Radio, I guess?

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.4.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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One of these things is decidedly not like the others.

Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Detroit (2) | 19:05 ET
• The recently added playoff-odds adjustment continues to bring considerable joy to the author.
• Because without it, I mean, this game would come out as probably a 6 by NERD.
• That would, of course, pretty seriously undervalue what I’ll call the Drama Factor of this game.
• That’s different, of course, than Drama Factor, the book by Haitian-American author Wanda Toby, who, per Amazon, is “driven to write by the passion of creation.”
• Which passion, interestingly, is the same one I feel when I see Modern Family’s Sofía Vergara.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Blerg?

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 4.9.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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Every player parking spot at San Francisco’s AT&T Park.

Featured Game
San Francisco (4) at Atlanta (4) | 19:10 ET
• Per their methodology, Cool Standings places the Giants’ postseason odds at 35.9%.
• Per their methodology, Baseball Prospectus places the Giants’ postseason odds at 65.1% — actually better than Arizona’s, whom they trail by 2.5 games in the NL West.
• Of course, neither system probably knows how the Giants have a team’s worth of disabled/injured players.
• Voila: Buster Posey (C), Pat Burrell (1B), Freddy Sanchez (2B), Jeff Keppinger (3B), Aaron Rowand (LF), Andres Torres (CF), Carlos Beltran (RF), Jonathan Sanchez or Barry Zito (SP), Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson (RP).
• Your mom can play shortstop, I guess.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Giants Radio. (With the straight-on Atlanta camera — the best angle in baseball.)

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 6.2.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Chicago Americans (3) | 20:10 ET
• If you access the part of your brain responsible for memory, you’ll likely recall that Indians-White Sox was yesterday’s featured game here, as well.
• Then that thing up above happened.
• Video of which you can see here.
• Note that Hawk Harrelson narrates a bunch of that.
• Note that Hawk Harrelson will now narrate your dreams.

Audio Feed: Suggestions? We discussed White Sox and Indian radio yesterday. Is one better, though?

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.1.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

Read the rest of this entry »

While certainly difficult to look at, white socks remain effective as ever.

Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Chicago Americans (2) | 20:10 ET
• The White Sox currently have a winning percentage of exactly .500.
• The last time they were at .500 wasn’t so long ago — July 29th.
• After which they immediately proceeded to go 0-6… and then 8-2 right after that.
• The last time they were above .500 is longer ago, however — April 15th, when they owned a 7-6 record.
• Last note: Ubaldo Jimenez with Cleveland: 2 GS, 13.0 IP, 23.2% K, 7.1% BB, 48.7% GB, 3.12 SIERA, 3.13 xFIP, 79 xFIP-.

Audio Feed: White Sox Television. (Unless Hawk Harrelson makes you physically ill, that is — in which case, try Cleveland Radio probably.)

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.6.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Constanza provides excellent return on your entertainment dollar.

Featured Game
San Francisco (4) at Atlanta (4) | 19:00 ET
• Behold! as one team (San Francisco) attempts furiously to claw itself back to the top of the NL West.
• Behold! as a second team (Atlanta) clings furiously to its Wild Card lead.
• Continue to behold!, as pitcher Madison Bumgarner (10) is good and young and due for, like, six kinds of regression.
• Provided you still have the strength, consider beholding! the Atlanta Braves’ right field area, where maybe Jose Constanza is instead of Jason Heyward.
• Which, “multiple and conflicting emotions” is a perfectly legitimate response to that.

Audio Feed: Giants Radio.

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.2.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

Read the rest of this entry »

If a tree falls in Sun Life Stadium, you can hear it in every other part of Sun Life Stadium, probably.

Featured Game
San Francisco (4) at Florida (9) | 13:10 ET
• This game does well by NERD predominantly because (a) the Marlins are young and (b) the Giants are very much in a postseason race.
• It does well otherwise because Mike Stanton (.261/.347/.525, .315 BABIP, 133 wRC+) will play in it and Brandon Belt (recalled yesterday) might also play in it.
• The other thing, though, is how the Marlins are drawing a league-worst 18,244 per game in a stadium with a capacity of around 70,000 for baseball, meaning the stadium is generally three-quarters empty.
• As Bill James has said somewhere, at some point: “Things are generally interesting to us because they’re interesting to other people.” Something like that.
• Looking at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium, it appears as though few people consider the Marlins interesting.

Audio Feed: Giants Radio. (Featuring the dulcet tones of Jon Miller.)

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.7.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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When you talk about talking people, you’re talking about these people talking.

Featured Game
Los Angeles Americans (5) at Toronto (6) | 13:07 ET
• When you’re talking about pitchers who’re third in the league in WAR, you’re talking about Jered Weaver (5.5).
• That’s provided, of course, that you’re talking about something as specific as that.
• Question: how long of a conversation would that be, though — the pitchers-who’re-third-in-the-league conversation?
• Thirty seconds?
• Or, because this is a Blue Jay game, 45 metric seconds?

Audio Feed: Blue Jays Radio.

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.3.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

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Poorly conceived, poorly executed.

Featured Game
Los Angeles Americans (5) at Toronto (6) | 19:07 ET
• On the one hand, David Price (10) and CC Sabathia (10) face each other in New York tonight.
• On the other hand, that game is largely meaningless as regards playoff implications.
• Meanwhile, the Angels are just two games behind the Rangers.
• And Brandon Morrow (10, as well) is pitching excellently this season.
• Like, the type of excellent where he has the seventh-best SIERA (3.02) among qualified pitchers — i.e. better (if only slightly) than both Price and Sabathia.

Audio Feed: Blue Jays Radio.

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.5.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

Read the rest of this entry »