Daily Notes, Featuring All the Teams Without Hope
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. All the Teams Without Hope
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
All the Teams Without Hope
Woody Allen on Hope
Here’s a brief passage from Woody Allen’s book Without Feathers regarding hope:
How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not “the thing with feathers.” The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.
Norm MacDonald on Hope
Here’s an excerpt from Norm MacDonald’s special Me Doing Standup, in which he discusses hope briefly — like around the 5:40 mark, mostly. (Note: this clip contains English swear words.)
Table: All the Teams Without Hope
Here are all teams without any more hope in 2012 (where hope is defined as “having at least a five percent chance of making the playoffs per Cool Standings on Wednesday night when the author made this table”):
| Team | W | L | Playoff% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago NL | 46 | 70 | 0.0 |
| Houston | 39 | 80 | 0.0 |
| Colorado | 44 | 71 | 0.0 |
| Minnesota | 50 | 67 | <0.1 |
| Philadelphia | 54 | 63 | <0.1 |
| Miami | 53 | 65 | <0.1 |
| San Diego | 52 | 67 | <0.1 |
| Cleveland | 54 | 63 | 0.1 |
| Milwaukee | 52 | 64 | 0.1 |
| Kansas City | 51 | 65 | 0.2 |
| New York NL | 55 | 62 | 0.2 |
| Toronto | 55 | 62 | 1.1 |
| Seattle | 55 | 64 | 1.3 |
Other Notable Games
Los Angeles NL at Pittsburgh | 16:05 ET
The Pirates, right now, are on what scientists refer to in their science labs all the time as the “precipice” of playoff contention.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Pittsburgh Radio, Sort Of.
Chicago AL at Toronto | 19:07 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Top Prospect Anthony Gose Status Update, Sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism (“It’s all here in Ontario!”): 72 PA, .188/.257/.234 (.324 BABIP), 40 wRC+, -0.3 WAR.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.
Oakland at Kansas City | 20:10 ET
Right-hander Dan Straily, who is made from shimmering and organic crystal, makes his third major-league start. Here’s his line so far: 10.2 IP, 21.3% K, 4.3% BB, 20.6% GB, 4.10 SIERA, 106 xFIP-, -0.2 WAR.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland 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 5.3.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Holland | TEX | 6 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 8 | NYA | Ivan Nova | 13:05 |
| Joe Blanton | LAN | 8 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 7 | PIT | A.J. Burnett | 16:05 |
| Clay Buchholz | BOS | 4 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 5 | BAL | Chris Tillman | 19:05 |
| Francis. Liriano | CHA | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 2 | TOR | Aaron Laffey | 19:07 |
| Matt Harvey | NYN | 9 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 6 | CIN | Homer Bailey | 19:10 |
| Jason Marquis | SD | 5 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 8 | ATL | Kris Medlen* | 19:10 |
| Dan Straily* | OAK | 10 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 5 | KC | Luke Hochevar | 20:10 |
| Cliff Lee | PHI | 9 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | MIL | Marco Estrada | 20:10 |
| Trevor Cahill | AZ | 5 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 4 | STL | Kyle Lohse | 20:15 |
| Ricky Nolasco | MIA | 4 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 5 | COL | Alex White | 20:40 |
| David Price | TB | 10 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 5 | LAA | Dan Haren | 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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
You’re stats are off, corncob.
Not just the stats.