Daily Notes: Considering the St. Louis Offense

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

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at San Francisco, 15:45 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at San Francisco, 15:45 ET
Regarding the St. Louis Offense, What All They Lead In
As of Wednesday, the St. Louis offense leads the majors both in park-adjusted offense (130 wRC+) and batter WAR (13.8) this season.

Regarding the St. Louis Offense, Their May So Far
The St. Louis offense has been particularly effective in May, leading the league in both park-adjusted offense (144 wRC+) and WAR (6.5).

Regarding If the Cardinals Were a Player
The Cardinals have accrued 169 player games and 577 plate appearances so far in May — or, roughly what one player might compile over the course of a season. Their batter WAR so far in May (again, 6.5) is higher than the total recorded by all but 12 major leaguers last season — most of whom accrued considerably more than 577 plate appearances.

Table of May Leaders
Here’s a handcrafted table of the May leaders for St. Louis:

Name	PA	BABIP	wRC+	Fld	BsR	WAR
Carlos Beltran	52	.320	282	0.2	0.1	1.4
Matt Holliday	61	.457	209	2.0	0.1	1.2
Allen Craig	55	.452	244	0.0	0.6	1.2
Rafael Furcal	62	.438	207	-0.2	0.1	1.1

Starting Pitchers
St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright (38.0 IP, 80 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR) faces San Francisco’s Matt Cain (51.1 IP, 91 xFIP-, 1.2 WAR).

Regarding Matt Cain’s Line
Cain once again appears to be demonstrating a skill for suppressing batted balls. His .189 BABIP is unsustainable, but Cain has posted a career .262 BABIP-against in 1368.2 innings — which is likely multiple standard deviations better than average over that time.

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

Other Notable Games
Baltimore at Kansas City | 14:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Public Service Announcement: Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones is currently tied for second with Detroit center fielder Austin Jackson, per WAR (2.5).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore.

Cincinnati at New York NL | 13:10 ET
After striking out two of the three batters he faced Wednesday night, Aroldis Chapman now has a 34:5 K:BB in 19.1 innings, an xFIP of 1.14, and a 1.1 WAR. Wait, no: even higher than a 1.1 WAR, as WAR isn’t among the live-scoring features on the player pages.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL.

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
Hector Noesi	SEA	3	3	5	4	9	CLE	Zach McAllister*	12:05
P.J. Walters*	MIN	6	2	6	2	8	DET	Doug Fister*	13:05
Mat Latos	CIN	5	3	6	1	10	NYN	R.A. Dickey	13:10
Brandon McCarthy	OAK	4	4	6	10	6	TEX	Matt Harrison	14:05
Brian Matusz	BAL	2	6	4	7	3	KC	Luke Hochevar	14:10
Trevor Cahill	AZ	4	5	5	7	6	COL	Juan Nicasio	15:10
Chris Sale	CHA	7	4	5	3	5	LAA	C.J. Wilson	15:35
Adam Wainwright	STL	8	10	7	3	7	SF	Matt Cain	15:45
James McDonald	PIT	6	1	6	2	8	WAS	Jo. Zimmermann	19:05
Phil Hughes	NYA	5	7	6	5	6	TOR	Drew Hutchison	19:07
Felix Doubront	BOS	6	6	5	7	4	TB	Matt Moore	19:10
Ricky Nolasco	MIA	3	4	4	8	4	ATL	Brandon Beachy	19:10
Shaun Marcum	MIL	5	6	5	6	5	HOU	J.A. Happ	20:05
Roy Halladay	PHI	7	4	5	3	3	CHN	Chris Volstad	20:05
Aaron Harang	LAN	3	5	4	5	5	SD	Edinson Volquez	22:05

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.