Daily Notes: Extraordinary Coincidences, Abounding

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

1. Featured Game: Philadelphia at St. Louis, 20:15 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Philadelphia at St. Louis, 20:15 ET
Regarding Two Surprisingly Effective Pitchers, Their Names
The names of two surprisingly effective starting pitchers this season are Joe Blanton (53.0 IP, 93 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR) and Jake Westbrook (52.1 IP, 90 xFIP-, 1.0 WAR).

Regarding Those Same Pitchers, An Extraordinary Coincidence
An extraordinary coincidence involving those same pitchers is that they’re both starting tonight, against each other, in this featured game.

Regarding Those Same Pitchers, Another Coincidence
Another coincidence involving those pitchers is that Joe Blanton’s secretary is named Westbrook and Westbrook’s secretary’s name is Blanton.

Regarding That Joke, How Hackneyed It Is
About 100% hackneyed, probably.

Regarding Some Other Jokes, Ones That Aren’t Hackneyed
Generally speaking, jokes by Anthony Jeselnik aren’t hackneyed (although, please note, they do contain mature content):

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

Other Notable Games
Atlanta at Cincinnati | 19:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Let’s do a Joey Votto Status Update. Line: 188 PA, .295/.447/.555 (.346 BABIP), 173 wRC+, 2.2 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio.

Minnesota at Chicago AL | 20:10 ET
Right-hander Cole Devries, who either (a) looks like or (b) actually is a substitute teacher, makes his first major-league start tonight for Minnesota.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Minnesota 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 5.0.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Justin Verlander	DET	9	3	5	4	2	CLE	Justin Masterson	12:05
Randall Delgado	ATL	4	7	5	3	5	CIN	Homer Bailey	19:10
Eric Stults*	SD	2	4	4	1	6	NYN	Jeremy Hefner*	19:10
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	2	4	5	4	8	MIA	Anibal Sanchez	19:10
Cole Devries*	MIN	8	2	5	4	4	CHA	Philip Humber	20:10
Joe Blanton	PHI	7	5	7	10	6	STL	Jake Westbrook	20:15
Dan Haren	LAA	6	3	4	5	3	SEA	Jason Vargas	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.