Daily Notes, Beginning with a Line by Chipper Jones

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

1. Featured Game: Washington at Atlanta, 16:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Washington at Atlanta, 16:05 ET
Regarding Who Pitches for Washington
Right-hander Stephen Strasburg (53.0 IP, 70 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR) pitches for them.

A Notable Comment Regarding Strasburg
Here’s a recent comment — notable because of who made it — regarding Strasburg:

Chipper Jones on #Strasburg: “He has the best stuff, the best repertoire of pitches that I’ve seen on any one single pitcher.” #Nats #MLB

— William Ladson (@washingnats) May 25, 2012

What We Can Say About the Aforementioned Repertoire
According to PITCHf/x, here’s Strasburg’s repertoire this season, accompanied by the average velocity and usage of each pitch:

• Four-Seam Fastball: 96.0 mph, 47.0%
• Two-Seam Fastball: 94.8 mph, 16.4%
• Curveball: 80.3 mph, 21.4%
• Changeup: 88.5 mph, 15.1%

What Else We Can Say About the Aforemented Repertoire
While it’s difficult to for us (read: the present author) to say objectively that Strasburg’s repertoire is the best in the league (or that Chipper Jones has ever seen), one thing we do know is that, according to pitch-type linear weights, none of his (i.e. Strasburg’s) pitches have ever profiled as below-average during his three years in the majors.

Additionally, A Third Thing We Can Say
A third thing we can say is, let’s trust Chipper Jones, how about.

A Note on the Camera Angle Here
Atlanta’s center-field camera angle is probably the best in the league. This is the first time Strasburg will have pitched in front of it this season — and only the second time he’s done so in his career (June 28th, 2010).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs like Atlanta and Washington Radio about the same (link).

Other Notable Games
Toronto at Texas | 15:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
After posting very promising defense-independent numbers (15.4% K, 3.1% BB, 53.5% GB) through 10 starts and 63.2 innings last season, Henderson Alvarez, who starts for Toronto, has done less of that (7.3% K, 6.1% BB, 57.7% GB) through nine starts and 60.0 innings this one.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

Milwaukee at Arizona | 22:10 ET
Right-hander Zack Greinke starts for the Brewers. Here’s some of his numbers, accompanied by their respective ranks among the league’s 121 qualified starters: 26.1% K (7th), 5.3% BB (21st), 50.0% GB (33rd), 2.59 SIERA (3rd), 2.3 WAR (2nd).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee 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 5.3.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Clayton Richard	SD	5	4	5	1	7	NYN	Johan Santana	13:10
Max Scherzer	DET	10	3	6	2	4	MIN	Carl Pavano	14:10
Hend. Alvarez	TOR	4	6	5	10	5	TEX	Colby Lewis	15:05
Felipe Paulino	KC	10	6	6	5	3	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	16:05
CC Sabathia	NYA	8	5	5	3	3	OAK	Bartolo Colon	16:05
St. Strasburg	WAS	10	5	7	7	5	ATL	Mike Minor	16:05
Derek Lowe	CLE	1	4	4	4	6	CHA	Jake Peavy	16:10
Mad. Bumgarner	SF	6	5	5	4	3	MIA	Mark Buehrle	16:10
Jerome Williams	LAA	4	3	5	5	7	SEA	Felix Hernandez	19:15
Paul Maholm	CHN	3	3	2	1	0	PIT	Kevin Correia	19:15
Jeremy Guthrie	COL		7	4	3	6	CIN	Mike Leake	19:15
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	2	4	6	10	8	STL	Jaime Garcia	19:15
David Price	TB	9	6	7	5	5	BOS	Josh Beckett	19:15
Bud Norris	HOU	7	6	6	6	4	LAN	Chad Billingsley	22:10
Zack Greinke	MIL	9	7	7	5	5	AZ	Wade Miley	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.