Daily Notes, Featuring Actual Transaction News

May 25, 2012

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

1. Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
The following players were promoted from the minors recently. Here we answer the question, “Who are they?”

Player: Quintin Berry, OF, DET
Line: 187 PA, .270/.368/.321 (.377 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: The 27-year-old Berry was recalled on Wednesday to replace Austin Jackson (abdomen) and has now batted leadoff twice and played center field in consecutive games. He actually has shown some ability to get on base in the minors (.091 isolated patience), but might see some of those walks evaporate owing to his lack of power (.071 ISO in minors).

Player: Kole Calhoun, OF, LAA
Line: 189 PA, .296/.365/.491 (.346 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: Marc Hulet addressed the 24-year-old Calhoun in a recent edition of his (i.e. Hulet’s) excellent Prospect Stock Watch series. Calhoun has spent the past season-plus in either the California or Pacific Coast League, which means that, whatever home-run totals he’s posted, they should be adjusted using this formula — (HR – 32) * (5 / 9) — which is also useful, it turns out, for converting from Farenheit to Celsius.

Player: Steven Hill, C/1B, STL
Line: 76 PA, .257/.303/.471 (.264 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: Lance Berkman (knee), Matt Carpenter (oblique), and Allen Craig (hamstring) — i.e. basically all the people who’ve played first base for St. Louis this year — were placed on the DL over the past week. Prospect Matt Adams (who was slashing .340/.375/.603 at Triple-A Memphia) will likely get the majority of starts in the triumvirate’s absence, but the 27-year-old Hill — who has played catcher, first base, and both corner-outfield spots at Memphis — might find a start here or there.

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Today’s Notable Games
Toronto at Texas | 20:05 ET
By WAR winning percentage — itself entirely infallible — the Rangers have been the best team in baseball so far. By that measure, they should have entered play on Thursday with 31.8 wins instead of just 27. One presumes the 0.8 is the merely partial credit a team receives for defeating Seattle.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

Philadelphia at St. Louis | 20:15 ET
Cliff Lee starts for the Phillies. Despite allowing five runs in his most recent start, he was rather effective in most of the ways a pitcher can be. To wit: 7.0 IP, 30 TBF, 6 K, 1 BB, 7 GB on 22 batted-balls (31.8% GB), 3.28 xFIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Philadelphia Radio.

Milwaukee at Arizona | 21:40 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Perhaps you’re curious who’s been playing first base with Mat Gamel (torn ACL) out for the season. Here’s the answer, for the team’s most recent six games, at least: Corey Hart (twice), Taylor Green (also twice), and Travis Ishikawa (also twice).

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 5.7.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Ryan Dempster	CHN	7	3	7	1	9	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Bruce Chen	KC	4	6	6	5	8	BAL	Jason Hammel	19:05
Christian Friedrich*	COL	7	7	6	3	5	CIN	Johnny Cueto	19:10
Anthony Bass	SD	8	4	7	1	8	NYN	Dillon Gee	19:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	7	4	6	4	7	MIA	Josh Johnson	19:10
Alex Cobb*	TB	7	6	6	5	4	BOS	Jon Lester	19:10
Ross Detwiler	WAS	6	5	6	7	5	ATL	Tim Hudson	19:35
Brandon Morrow	TOR	6	7	7	10	6	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Jeanmar Gomez	CLE	3	4	4	4	6	CHA	Jose Quintana*	20:10
Drew Smyly	DET	7	3	5	2	4	MIN	Anthony Swarzak*	20:10
Cliff Lee	PHI	10	4	7	10	5	STL	Kyle Lohse	20:15
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	4	7	5	5	5	AZ	Ian Kennedy	21:40
Ivan Nova	NYA	8	5	5	3	3	OAK	Tyson Ross	22:05
Ervin Santana	LAA	4	3	3	5	2	SEA	Blake Beavan	22:10
Lucas Harrell	HOU	3	6	6	6	9	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	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.