Daily Notes: Assorted Nerd Facts in re Homer Bailey

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

1. Nerd Facts: Homer Bailey’s No-Hitter
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Nerd Facts: Homer Bailey’s No-Hitter
Regarding What Follows
What follows is a brief assortment of information regarding Cincinnati right-hander Homer Bailey’s no-hitter in Pittsburgh on Friday.

Which, In Case You Didn’t Hear
In case the reader was busy with some manner of nerdly venture, or indisposed in whatever way, what happened last (Friday) night is Cincinnati right-hander Homer Bailey threw a no-hitter against the Pirates in Pittsburgh.

Bailey’s Final Line
Here’s Bailey’s nerd line from last night (box): 9.0 IP, 28 TBF, 10 K, 1 BB, 10 GB on 17 batted-balls (58.8% GB), 1.22 FIP, 1.87 xFIP.

By Game Score, This Year’s No-Hitters
Here are this season’s no-hitters, including Bailey’s, sorted by Game Score (data courtesy Baseball Reference):

Rk	Player	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	IP	H	R	BB	SO	Pit	Str	GSc
1	Matt Cain	6/13/2012	SFG	HOU	W 10-0	9	0	0	0	14	125	86	101
2	Felix Hernandez	8/15/2012	SEA	TBR	W 1-0	9	0	0	0	12	113	77	99
3	Homer Bailey	9/28/2012	CIN	PIT	W 1-0	9	0	0	1	10	115	74	96
4	Philip Humber	4/21/2012	CHW	SEA	W 4-0	9	0	0	0	9	96	67	96
5	Jered Weaver	5/2/2012	LAA	MIN	W 9-0	9	0	0	1	9	121	77	95
6	Johan Santana	6/1/2012	NYM	STL	W 8-0	9	0	0	5	8	134	77	90

Bailey’s Best Pitch
Bailey’s best on Friday was his fastball: per the PITCHf/x data from Brooks Baseball, Bailey induced whiffs on 12 of the 70 four-seam fastballs he threw (about a 17% swinging-strike rate). Per linear-weight pitch values, Bailey’s four-seamer was worth about four runs above average by itself.

An Example of the Fastball
Here’s Bailey throwing his fastball past Pirates infielder Jordy Mercer in the seventh inning:

Another Example of the Fastball
Here’s Bailey throwing a very similar-looking fastball past Mercer on the exact next pitch, as well:

Jordy Mercer Against Homer Bailey, In Sum
Jordy Mercer swung and miss, actually, five times against Bailey on Friday: on two sliders in the first inning and then on a slider and the two fastballs above in the seventh.

Video of Every Out
Here’s video from MLB.com of every out from Bailey’s no-hitter:

Today’s Notable Games
Tampa Bay at Chicago AL | 16:05 ET
Talented young left-hander Matt Moore (172.0 IP, 105 xFIP-, 2.2 WAR) faces other talented and young left-hander Chris Sale (188.2 IP, 78 xFIP-, 4.9 WAR) in today’s game with the most Playoff Implications™.

Broadcast Information: FOX Saturday Game.

Kansas City at Cleveland | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Largely hailed — and pretty Italian-seeming — pitching prospect Jake Odorizzi makes his second major-league start for the Royals. Here’s the line from his debut on September 23rd (box): 5.1 IP, 23 TBF, 3 K, 1 BB, 4 GB on 19 batted-balls (21.1% GB), 5.29 xFIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland 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 3.8.

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
Andy Pettitte	NYA	9	7	4	5	2	TOR	Ricky Romero	13:07
Ervin Santana	LAA	4	7	5	6	6	TEX	Derek Holland	16:05
Justin Verlander	DET	10	4	4	4	2	MIN	P.J. Walters	16:05
Jason Vargas	SEA	3	4	2	7	3	OAK	Dan Straily	16:05
Matt Moore	TB	7	6	8	4	10	CHA	Chris Sale	16:05
Felix Doubront	BOS	7	5	5	3	9	BAL	Steve Johnson*	19:05
Mike Leake	CIN	6	4	4	4	7	PIT	Kyle McPherson*	19:05
Jake Odorizzi*	KC	8	7	3	2	2	CLE	Jeanmar Gomez	19:05
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	0	3	2	9	7	MIL	Marco Estrada	19:10
Chris Young	NYN	0	2	0	6	4	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Roy Halladay	PHI	8	6	4	4	4	MIA	Ricky Nolasco	19:10
Jo. Zimmermann	WAS	8	7	5	8	5	STL	Kyle Lohse	19:15
Justin Germano	CHN	4	2	3	7	6	AZ	Trevor Cahill	20:10
Mad. Bumgarner	SF	9	4	4	6	3	SD	Eric Stults	20:35
Tyler Chatwood	COL	4	7	4	1	8	LAN	Joe Blanton	21:10

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.