Daily Notes, Featuring a Moment of Weakness

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

1. Featured Game: Tampa Bay at New York AL, 13:40 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Tampa Bay at New York AL, 13:40 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
One reason why this game is notable is on account of the presence of Playoff Implications™ in it.

Regarding the Rays, Their Playoff-Odds Status
The Rays are currently four games out of first place in the AL East and have, according to Cool Standings, a 26.7% chance of making the postseason (which includes their likelihood of qualifying for the wild-card play-in game).

Regarding the Yankers, Their Playoff-Odds Status
The Yankers currently occupy first place in the AL East and have, also according to Cool Standings, a 90.0% chance of making the postseason (including a ca. 70% probability of winning the division).

Regarding “Yankers,” Why the Author Would Call Them That
The author referred to the New York Yankees as the “Yankers,” because he is sometimes physically repulsed by the thought of New York’s pinstriped uniforms and the ubiquity of those same uniforms — on his television, on his internet computer, etc. As some people do, he (i.e. the author) sought to attack — as opposed to ignore, which is the more civil and, ultimately, harmonious tact — the source of his frustrations. The use of “Yanker,” connoting someone in the midst of an autoerotic act — and rendered grotesque and vulnerable as a result — seemed like a logical solution, in this case.

Regarding “Yankers,” How the Author Feels After Having Written It
Childish. Embarrassed a little. No more empowered.

Regarding the Above Two Sections, How Long It Took to Compose Them
A distressing amount of time.

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

Other Notable Games
Pittsburgh at Chicago NL | 14:20 ET
Left-handed prospect Jeff Locke has been curiously effective in four appearances (two starts) for the Pirates. To wit: 15.1 IP, 21.0% K, 1.6% BB, 57.4% GB, 2.80 SIERA, 78 xFIP-, 0.1 WAR. His fastball sits only at 89-90 mph, but his changeup has been quite effective so far: the pitch has been worth 1.4 runs better than average already (a rate of ca. four runs per 100 thrown).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago NL Radio.

St. Louis at Los Angeles NL | 16:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
After their ninth-inning, come-from-behind victory on Saturday night (box), the Dodgers are now tied with the Cardinals for the second wild-card spot in the National League.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL (i.e. Vin Scully) Television.

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 3.9.

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
Matt Moore	TB	7	5	6	6	6	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	13:05
Jon Lester	BOS	6	6	4	5	7	TOR	Brandon Morrow	13:07
Mat Latos	CIN	7	4	3	4	4	MIA	Ricky Nolasco	13:10
Roy Halladay	PHI	8	5	5	4	6	HOU	Jordan Lyles	14:05
Dan Haren	LAA	5	8	5	8	4	KC	Will Smith	14:10
Jake Peavy	CHA	5	5	4	4	6	MIN	Scott Diamond	14:10
Chris Young	NYN	0	2	3	9	10	MIL	Wily Peralta*	14:10
Jeff Locke*	PIT	10	4	4	1	3	CHN	Chris Volstad	14:20
Rick Porcello	DET	7	3	3	2	1	CLE	Ubaldo Jimenez	15:05
Blake Beavan	SEA	3	4	2	7	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	15:05
Randy Wolf	BAL	3	2	3	6	5	OAK	Dan Straily	16:05
Alex White	COL	3	7	3	7	7	SD	Andrew Werner	16:05
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	3	3	3	6	8	AZ	Patrick Corbin	16:10
Adam Wainwright	STL	8	9	6	1	5	LAN	Stephen Fife*	16:10
Gio Gonzalez	WAS	8	7	4	6	4	ATL	Mike Minor	20:05

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.