Daily Notes: A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today

August 25, 2013

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

1. A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this weekend post is to establish, for the benefit of his employers, the author’s commitment to producing a great quantity of content if not necessarily a superior quality of it.

A Second Purpose of This Post
A second purpose of this post is to fulfill the obligation — because obligations are things that need fulfulling — implied by the word daily in the title of this post.

A Third Purpose of This Post
A third purpose of this post — in part related to the first and second — is to provide for reader and author the illusion of permanence. “These notes, having been published daily,” one says to oneself, alone at an entirely too-expensive laptop, “suggest that they will continue to be published daily. They will go on, and they will not die. Therefore, I will not die. QED, isn’t it?” Having fallen silent again, that same reader will follow a hyperlink to some other internet destination, the blueblack glow of his monitor reflected in the tracks of his tears.

A Fourth Purpose of This Post
The quarternary and final purpose of this post is to announce how generally beloved right-hander Roy Halladay, out since early May owing to arm/shoulder surgery, is returning today (Sunday) to start for Philadelphia at 1:35pm ET against Arizona.

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Regarding Halladay, His Rehab Performances
In two minor-league rehab starts — first in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and, second, in the Class-A Sally League — Halladay recorded an 8:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 12.0 innings. Not very inspirational, that.

Regarding Halladay, His Velocities
Halladay’s fastball sat at around 87 mph during his first rehab start, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Matt Gelb, and did not top 89 mph during that same start. Not vintage Halladay, that, either.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Atlanta at St. Louis | 19:15 ET
Mike Minor (158.2 IP, 95 xFIP-, 3.2 WAR) faces Lance Lynn (161.0 IP, 100 xFIP-, 2.8 WAR). The Atlantans currently possess the best odds of making the playoffs, per Cool Standings, at 99.9% — largely owing to their (i.e. Atlanta’s) 12-game lead in the NL East, one assumes.

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 5.5.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Mike Pelfrey	MIN	0	3	4	7	6	CLE	Scott Kazmir	13:05
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	3	7	3	1	3	MIA	Jacob Turner	13:10
Rick Porcello	DET	8	7	7	7	5	NYN	Dillon Gee	13:10
Marco Estrada	MIL	6	3	5	3	5	CIN	Greg Reynolds*	13:10
Patrick Corbin	AZ	9	3	6	0	5	PHI	Roy Halladay	13:35
Sonny Gray	OAK	10	6	7	9	3	BAL	Scott Feldman	13:35
Ivan Nova	NYA	8	2	7	10	7	TB	Alex Cobb	13:40
Matt Garza	TEX	6	3	5	1	6	CHA	John Danks	14:10
Mark Buehrle	TOR	4	7	5	4	6	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	14:10
Dan Haren	WAS	6	2	6	8	7	KC	Ervin Santana	14:10
Mike Minor	ATL	8	8	7	3	6	STL	Lance Lynn	14:15
A.J. Burnett	PIT	8	6	5	4	2	SF	Ryan Vogelsong	16:05
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	7	4	4	3	SEA	Aaron Harang	16:10
Chris Rusin	CHN	4	5	5	6	6	SD	And. Cashner	16:10
Jake Peavy	BOS	6	9	6	3	5	LAN	Chris Capuano	20:05

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