Daily Notes: All of the Weekend’s Probable Televised Starters
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Spring Broadcast Schedule Begins Saturday
2. Saturday Games and Probable Starters
3. Sunday Games and Probable Starters
Spring Broadcast Schedule Begins Saturday
This weekend, six spring-training games are available via MLB.TV. “Which pitchers are starting those games?” a hypothetical reader might ask conveniently for the sake of this post. To which the author responds: “That’s a reasonable question.”
Indeed, given the nature of spring training, teams’ probable starters are not available days ahead of time (through the MLB website, for example) the way they are during the regular season. For example, as the author writes this, there are precisely zero probable starters listed for Saturday’s and Sunday’s games — and yet, this is what we might call “need to know” information.
With a view to satisfying the reader’s curiosity, then, what the author has done is to utilize his Google machine such that he might procure it (i.e. the information) from the internet. What follows is the fruit of that not-very-exhausting labor.
Beside each pitcher is his Steamer projection for 2013. Source material is available by clicking on each respective team acronym. All corrections are invited.
Saturday Games and Probable Starters
Washington at New York NL | 12:10 ET
WAS — Stephen Strasburg: 190.0 IP, 27.4% K, 7.1% BB, 2.92 ERA, 5.5 WAR
NYN — Zack Wheeler: 87.0 IP, 18.5% K, 11.7% BB, 4.58 ERA, 0.8 WAR
Toronto at Detroit | 13:05 ET
TOR — Brandon Morrow: 181.0 IP, 20.9% K, 8.8% BB, 3.98 ERA, 2.2 WAR
DET — Anibal Sanchez: 197.0 IP, 17.5% K, 6.8% BB, 4.11 ERA, 2.8 WAR
Houston at Philadelphia | 13:05 ET
HOU — Lucas Harrell: 189.0 IP, 13.5% K, 9.8% BB, 4.65 ERA, 1.8 WAR
PHI — Cole Hamels: 222.0 IP, 22.2% K, 6.2% BB, 3.47 ERA, 4.7 WAR
Tampa Bay (ss) at Boston | 13:35 ET
TBA — Enny Romero: N/A (Ranked eighth among Rays prospects)
BOS — John Lackey: 169.0 IP, 12.7% K, 7.8% BB, 4.79 ERA, 1.2 WAR
Sunday Games and Probable Starters
Toronto (ss) at New York AL | 13:05 ET
TOR — J.A. Happ: 134.0 IP, 19.0% K, 10.0% BB, 4.33 ERA, 0.4 WAR
NYA — David Phelps: 124.0 IP, 18.2% K, 8.2% BB, 4.11 ERA, 0.8 WAR
Oakland at Los Angeles AL | 15:05 ET
OAK — Travis Blackley: 77.0 IP, 15.3% K, 8.2% BB, 4.26 ERA, 0.4 WAR
LAA — Billy Buckner, AJ Schugel, Brad Mills, Barry Enright, Garrett Richards, or Jerome Williams (It’s not clear, is the point.)
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
A hypothetical reader might also be interested to learn that Stephen Strasburg has been engaged in what is commonly known as “tinkering” with his arsenal of pitches, specifically with his two-seam fastball also sometimes called a sinker. In particular, he would like this pitch to have more downward or sinking movement and less inside or running movement. Readers who have rationally decided to watch him pitch might be interested in observing his new sinking fastball and comparing it to those he threw last year.
And and readers who are interested in learning more can do so by navigating to this fine webpage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/nationals-journal/wp/2013/02/18/the-adjustment-stephen-strasburg-wants-to-make/
In fact, this seems to be precisely the thing that all these hypothetical — and maybe even actual — readers would be interested to learn.