Daily Notes: A Most Sinister Day in Baseball

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

1. Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Washington, 19:05 ET
2. College World Series: Elimination Games Abound
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Washington, 19:05 ET
A Note on Who’s Pitching, First
This game features hard-throwing left-hander Matt Moore (75.2 IP, 103 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) against other hard-throwing left-hander Gio Gonzalez (78.2 IP, 75 xFIP-, 3.0 WAR).

Regarding These Left-Handers, How Hard-Throwing They Are
In terms of fastball velocity, Moore (94.2 mph) and Gonzalez (93.4 mph) have the second- and third-highest average ones among all qualified left-handers, according to PITCHf/x.

Regarding Left-Handers, Generally
With regard to left-handers, generally, both etymology and probably also science somehow teach us that they’re (i.e. left-handers), by definition, sinister.

Etymonline Entry for Sinister
Regard, the entire entry for sinister at Etymonline of the internet:

early 15c., “prompted by malice or ill-will,” from O.Fr. sinistre “contrary, unfavorable, to the left,” from L. sinister “left, on the left side” (opposite of dexter), perhaps from root *sen- and meaning properly “the slower or weaker hand” [Tucker], but Buck suggests it’s a euphemism (see left), connected with the root of Skt. saniyan “more useful, more advantageous.” The Latin word was used in augury in the sense of “unlucky, unfavorable” (omens, especially bird flights, seen on the left hand were regarded as portending misfortune), and thus sinister acquired a sense of “harmful, unfavorable, adverse.” This was from Greek influence, reflecting the early Greek practice of facing north when observing omens; in genuine Roman auspices, the left was favorable. Bend (not “bar”) sinister in heraldry indicates illegitimacy and preserves the lit. sense of “on the left side.”

A Thing That All Proves
A thing that all proves is, is that people — like the author — who took seven years of Latin will take any opportunity to belabor for whatever audience is available the etymology of this or that word.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Washington Radio (link).

College World Series: Elimination Games Abound
College World Series: Three Games
Because of a rainout of last night’s scheduled game between upstarts Kent State and reigning two-time champions South Carolina, not only will that game be played today today, but also the subsequent game — thse

Today’s Schedule
Here are today’s games, all available on ESPN2 and online at Watch ESPN.

• Kent State vs. South Carolina, Noon ET

• Arizona vs. Florida State, 5pm ET

• Arkansas vs. Kent State-South Carolina Winner, 9 pm ET

A Note on Elimination Scenarios
Here’s who could and/or will be eliminated today:

• The loser of the Kent State-South Carolina games.

• Florida State, if they lose to Arizona (who have yet to lost in the CWS).

• The Kent State-South Carolina Winner, if they lose to Arkansas (who also have yet to lost in the CWS).

A Nerd’s Guide to the Above
Notes on all the CWS teams — with FanGraphs readers particularly in mind — are available here: Part I, Part II.

Other Notable Games
St. Louis at Detroit | 13:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Tigers right-hander Jacob Turner, 21, makes his season debut. Here’s what he did last year in three starts for Detroit: 12.2 IP, 13.3% K, 6.7% BB, 41.3% GB, 4.56 SIERA, 117 xFIP-, -0.1 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule
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.

Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Kyle Lohse	STL	4	10	6	5	5	DET	Jacob Turner*	13:05
Clayton Kershaw	LAN	9	4	5	4	2	OAK	Travis Blackley	15:35
Jeff Francis*	COL	3	10	4	5	7	PHI	Vance Worley	19:05
Liam Hendriks	MIN	4	3	4	2	6	PIT	James McDonald	19:05
Matt Moore	TB	7	5	8	5	10	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Carlos Zambrano	MIA	3	2	4	5	5	BOS	D. Matsuzaka*	19:10

To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.