Daily Notes: Feat. Top Games for All the People

September 8, 2013

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

1. Top Games for All the People
2. Today’s Complete Schedule

Top Games for All the People
Introduction
Nothing debilitates the bespectacled reader like serious bodily injury. Beyond that, however, nothing debilitates like the prospect of having to choose which game to watch leisurely from one’s couch. The author has hopefully done something to combat these grievous conditions by providing below the curated list of today’s top games.

New York NL at Cleveland, 1:05pm ET
Last Saturday, Cleveland had something not unlike a 10-15% chance of making the playoffs in some capacity (i.e. by winning the division or qualifying for the wild-card game). Science informs us that those odds are much closer to 50% at the moment. “Life can change by upwards of 40 percentage points,” is the universal message one derives from these recent events. Impossible to ignore with regard to this game is how young and hard-throwing Danny Salazar is starting it for Cleveland.

Pittsburgh at St. Louis, 2:15pm ET ***Today’s MLB.TV Free Game***
“What’s the nature of drama?” is a question, apparently, to which 17th century playwrights (and critics) were quite comfortable providing an answer. That which exhibits Aristotle’s Three Unities (of place, action, and time), appears to’ve been part of that answer. That which both pleases and educates, seems to’ve been another part. By both criteria, this afternoon’s Pirates-Cardinals game would likely have qualified as acceptable theatre in 17th century France — in no small part owing to how the clubs are separated by a mere half-game in the NL Central.

Tampa Bay at Seattle, 4:10pm ET
The Rays of Tampa Bay look into the future; what do they see? One of two things, likely: either all the Rays see a 50% chance of making the playoffs, or half the Rays see a 100% chance of making the playoffs. What we know is that approximately 70% of them probably don’t see approximately a 70% chance.

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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.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Jon Lester	BOS	4	0	3	2	5	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	13:05
D. Matsuzaka*	NYN	4	0	9	9	10	CLE	Danny Salazar	13:05
St. Strasburg	WAS	10	0	3	0	3	MIA	Jacob Turner	13:10
Paul Maholm	ATL	4	0	3	0	8	PHI	Cole Hamels	13:35
Andre Rienzo	CHA	2	0	2	2	3	BAL	Bud Norris	13:35
Doug Fister	DET	6	0	2	0	2	KC	Bruce Chen	14:10
Esmil Rogers	TOR	5	0	2	0	3	MIN	Andrew Albers	14:10
Charlie Morton	PIT	6	7	10	10	10	STL	Michael Wacha	14:15
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	3	0	2	0	7	CHN	Scott Baker*	14:20
Nick Tepesch	TEX	7	7	7	0	3	LAA	Jason Vargas	15:35
Wade Miley	AZ	6	0	3	0	7	SF	M. Bumgarner	16:05
Paul Clemens*	HOU	2	0	6	7	4	OAK	Bartolo Colon	16:05
Chad Bettis	COL	2	0	1	0	3	SD	Ian Kennedy	16:10
Matt Moore	TB	5	10	9	0	7	SEA	Erasmo Ramirez	16:10
Clayton Kershaw	LAN	10	0	6	3	9	CIN	Homer Bailey	20:05

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.