Let’s cut to the chase, how’s about.

Featured Game
Detroit (2) at Cleveland (6) | 19:05 ET
• Allow me to remind the reader that, after some important work in the NERD Lab yesterday, today’s Game Scores are being calculated with a new and improved playoff-odds adjustment — the entirely boring and unnecessarily complicated details of which any English speaker with a computer can read here.
• If you’re the sort of reader who prefers cutting to the chase, remain confident that Carson Cistulli is dedicated to improving your baseball experience to the max.
• If you’re the sort of film director who prefers cutting to the chase, your name is probably Hal Roach Sr.
• And you directed the Our Gang movies, among others.
• And you died in 1992. (Which: condolences.)

Audio Feed: Suggestions? (I’ve watched some Tigers Television. Rod Allen is quite strong, but I wouldn’t describe the broadcast as transencdent, either.)

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.

Note: a full list of Team NERD scores — including the relevant playoff-odds adjustments (POFF) appear at the bottom of this post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the NERD Lab.

NERD Lab!
Today, instead of reviewing one game, we’re going to spend some time in the NERD Lab. “Fun!” is the appropriate response to that.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous edition of One Night Only — or, in the comments section of a previous edition, at least — one thing that’s maybe less effective with the present iteration of NERD is that the playoff-odd adjustments are applied directly to Team NERD and not to the overall Game Scores. This isn’t really representative of what we’re trying to assess, I don’t think, because the playoff adjustment is an expression of context, and how that context might make a game more or less interesting. Meanwhile, the Team NERD scores are designed to be a measure of a team’s pure watchability.

Accordingly, I’ve submitted two versions of today’s games below: one with the playoff-odd adjustment in the Team NERD (as per usual) and one with a playoff-odds adjustment applied after the fact, to the Game Score directly.

The calculation for the playoff adjustment is both (a) boring and (b) assuredly more difficult than it needs to be.

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The author is not a wizard, turns out.

Featured Game
Milwaukee (8) at St. Louis (7) | 20:15 ET
• Since July 12th, when I made the case that Milwaukee could improve itself most efficiently and cheaply by trading for a shortstop, Yuniesky Betancourt has slashed .388/.405/.575 (.412 BABIP) in 84 plate appearances — this, after slashing .237/.255/.342 (.242 BABIP) in the 321 PAs up till that point.
• Coinicidence? Yes, obviously.
• I promise you, if I possessed the ability to alter world events, I’d use it almost exclusively for personal gain.
• Like, to get big muscles, probably.
• Not on my body, I mean — just to have around the house.

Audio Feed: Brewers 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 5.8.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is probably a Houston Astro.

Featured Game
Houston (4) at Arizona (8) | 21:40 ET
• NERD suggests, largely on the strength of Roy Halladay’s (10) excellence, that one would do well to watch Philadelphia-Los Angeles tonight.
• What NERD doesn’t know is the effect that watching the Dodgers can have on serotonin levels in humans.
• Another thing that NERD doesn’t know is how the Houston Astros are essentially a different team than — well, than a week ago, about.
• By my count, four of the Houston starters from Sunday’s game had made their major-league debut within the past three weeks.
• To wit: Jose Altuve (July 20th), J.D. Martinez (July 30th), Jimmy Paredes (August 1st), Jack Shuck (August 5th).

Audio Feed: Astros Television. (I’ve actually never watched their broadcast before, but some readers have suggested that Bill Brown and Jim Deshaies are above average.)

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

An elderly, and even more dominant, Zack Greinke.

Featured Game
Milwaukee (7) at Houston (4) | 14:05 ET
If Zack Greinke’s (10) strikeout rate continues at the pace he’s established so far over the course of his career, he’ll strike out every batter he faces in the year 2055.

Audio Feed: Brewers 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s edition of One Night Only is prepared to shock you in your mind.

Featured Game
Atlanta (6) at New York Nationals (5) | 19:10 ET
• Unless you’re a Met fan or own him in a fantasy league, there’s a strong chance you’re unaware of how well Jonathon Niese’s (9) 2011 is going.
• Which, I say that mostly because I, personally, was unaware of how well Niese’s 2011 was going.
• By way of illustration, here are fives names after Niese’s on the xFIP leaderboard: Justin Masterson, Jon Lester, C.J. Wilson, Jered Weaver, Josh Beckett.
• Weird and great, right?
• Also weird and great: most every available photo of Klaus Kinski.

Watch: New York Television.

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.

Note: Nate Eovaldi will be making his major-league debut for the Dodgers. Eovaldi at Double-A Chattanooga: 103.0 IP, 8.65 K/9, 4.02 BB/9, 0.26 HR/9, 3.05 FIP.

Note: Zach Stewart, and not Jake Peavy, will start for the White Sox.

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¡Llama ya!

Featured Game
Cleveland (9) at Texas (8) | 20:05 ET
• Tonight marks Ubaldo Jimenez’s (7) debut for the Cleveland Indians, after they (i.e. Cleveland) traded four minor leaguers (including top-100 prospects Drew Pomeranz and Alex White) to Colorado for the right-hander.
• If you’re the sort of person who’d care to read analysis about this sort of thing, you can do that at this very site.
• Regard: work by Eric Seidman, Steve Slowinski, and FanGraphs’ most handsome author.
• If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t care to read, we can dictate these same works to you over the phone.
• Just call 1-900-Hot-Nerd. Nerds are standing by.*

*Don’t do that and, no, they’re not.

Watch: Texas Television (with the radio call by KESN’s Eric Nadel, if possible).

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Curd!

Featured Game
Philadelphia (3) at San Francisco (6) | 22:15 ET
• Among the things I’d either (a) known and forgotten or (b) never known in the first place, one of them is that Madison Bumgarner (10), owner of a 3.22 SIERA and 3.15 xFIP and 83 xFIP-, is only 21 years old.
• Another one is to use the second person plural (vous, as opposed to tu) when speaking to strangers in France.
• Of course, the exact consequences of neglecting to do so aren’t entirely clear.
• Then again, neither are the consequences of most things.
• Like eating fried cheese curds, for example. Or any kind of cheese curd, for also example.

Watch: Comcast SportsNet Bay Area — with Jon Miller’s gold-embossed radio call, if possible.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston offense is indefatigable, whatever that word means.

Featured Game
Cleveland (9) at Boston (7) | 19:10 ET
• So, there are 25 qualified batters currently sporting a 140 wRC+ or better and five of them, turns out, are on the Red Sox.
• To wit: Adrian Gonzalez (166), Dustin Pedroia (151), Jacoby Ellsbury (146), David Ortiz (145), and Kevin Youkilis (143).
• Those also happened to be batters No. 1-5 (although not in that order) in the Red Sox lineup yesterday in the first game of this series — which, that doesn’t seem fair.
• But you know another thing that’s not fair? Life.
• And a third? My grandfather’s skin after standing out in the sun for, like, 30 seconds.*

*Denotes comedy joke.

Watch: NESN.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

What the author talks about when he talks about Daniel Hudson.

Featured Game
Arizona (8) at San Francisco (5) | 22:15 ET
• The very slingy Daniel Hudson (8) faces the very Cy Young-y Tim Lincecum (also 8).
• After last night’s contest between these same teams, either one or three games separate them in the standings.
• I don’t know, though, because I wrote these words on Monday afternoon.
• Another thing I did on Monday was to look up new Arizona first baseman Paul Goldschmidt’s line at Double-A Mobile.
• Which, allow me to share that with you post-haste: 457 PA, .306/.435/.626 (.331 BABIP), 130 wOBA+.

Watch: Both Fox Sports Arizona and Comcast SportsNet Bay Area — to decide whose voice is man-ier, Mark Grace’s or Mike Krukow’s.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »