Daily Notes: Cashner-Bauer Clash of Power

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

1. Featured Game: San Diego at Arizona, 21:40 ET
2. Video: Andrew Cashner’s Last Start, Just Because
3. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: San Diego at Arizona, 21:40 ET
Regarding What’s Happening Tonight
Tonight what’s happening is the author is traveling via car and then boat and then car again to his in-laws’ house in the northern-most regions of Michigan — in advance of the July 4th holiday, that is, like an American.

Regarding What Else Is Happening Tonight
The other thing that’s happening tonight is Very Interesting Right-Hander Andrew Cashner of the San Diego Padres is facing Other Interesting Right-Hander Trevor Bauer of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Thing That’s Interesting About Andrew Cashner
The thing that’s interesting about Andrew Cashner is his fastball sits at 98 mph as a starter — the highest such figure for any pitcher who’s started a game this season.

The Other Thing That’s Interesting About Andrew Cashner
What else is interesting about Andrew Cashner is how well he pitched in his first start since being recalled right at the end of June. To wit: 6.1 IP, 22 TBF, 9 K, 1 BB, 4 GB on 12 batted-balls (33.3% GB), 1.37 xFIP.

The Thing That’s Interesting About Trevor Bauer
To say that there are “a billion” things interesting about Trevor Bauer would represent an instance of gross hyperbole. At the same time, there are a number of people who would suggest that sometimes it’s necessary to lie in order to tell the truth.

One Specific Thing That’s Interesting About Trevor Bauer
One specific thing that’s interesting about Trevor Bauer is that he throws a reverse slider, maybe. And tweets about it, definitely.

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

Video: Andrew Cashner’s Last Start, Just Because
Here, presented with minimal comment, is Andrew Cashner’s start from June 28th.

Other Notable Games
San Francisco at Washington | 18:35 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Melky Cabrera Status Update: 341 PA, .352/.394/.514 (.390 BABIP), 149 wRC+, 3.1 WAR. His previous high in WAR: 4.2 in 2011, actually, in 706 plate appearances.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio.

Texas at Chicago AL | 20:10 ET
Right-hander Roy Oswalt (12.2 IP, 71 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) faces left-hander Chris Sale (95.1 IP, 79 xFIP-, 3.2 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas 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 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
Anibal Sanchez	MIA	7	2	5	7	7	MIL	Marco Estrada	16:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	7	4	6	5	7	WAS	J. Zimmermann	18:35
Dan Haren	LAA	6	5	6	4	6	CLE	Zach McAllister	19:05
Lucas Harrell	HOU	4	4	4	3	7	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Nick Blackburn	MIN	1	4	5	4	10	DET	Max Scherzer	19:05
Vin Mazzaro	KC	4	5	5	7	5	TOR	Brett Cecil*	19:07
Chris Volstad	CHN	3	3	2	7	0	ATL	Jair Jurrjens	19:10
Ivan Nova	NYA	6	6	6	4	8	TB	James Shields	19:10
Vance Worley	PHI	6	6	6	2	7	NYN	Jonathon Niese	19:10
Roy Oswalt*	TEX	10	10	8	5	10	CHA	Chris Sale	20:10
Jeff Francis	COL	2	10	4	9	5	STL	Joe Kelly	20:15
Andrew Cashner*	SD	10	5	9	7	10	AZ	Trevor Bauer*	21:40
Jon Lester	BOS	7	6	6	4	4	OAK	Bartolo Colon	22:05
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	3	3	4	3	8	SEA	Felix Hernandez	22:10
Johnny Cueto	CIN	6	3	6	2	6	LAN	Chris Capuano	22:10

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.