Daily Notes: Featuring Analysis from the Author’s Grandfather

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

1. Analysis from the Author’s Grandfather
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Analysis from the Author’s Grandfather
The author, as he writes this, is presently sitting across a breakfast table from his 92-year-old grandfather, a man who not only has opinions, but whose opinions themselves have opinions.

What follows is a small collection of that same grandfather’s opinions on the Boston Red Sox and AL East.

On the Red Sox This Season:

Well, they got a good chance to win their division. I don’t know about the World Series. Depends on who they’re playing against. Did they win yesterday? [Author checks. “They did win.”] Well, then how about the Rays? [Author checks. “They lost.”] Good. They got it down to three games now. I’ve got the papers saved downstairs for three or four days. I’ve got so much paper. I’ve got a stack this high. I’ve got to bring it down to the dump.

[…]

I think they’ll win their division. It’s three now, they need to get it to five games. They lost to a poor team the other day. They’re capable of winning, but they’re not the strongest team.

On the Strongest Team:

Well, the team that — they fell behind more — was Baltimore, but the Rays have got a good team, and they’re capable of beating the Red Sox. But they lost yesterday. If the Sox are capable of getting it up to five games, they’ll win the division. Out of five games against the Rays, it’s probably three and two. The Rays are a good hitting team, and they’ve got a couple of real good pitchers.

On the Yankees This Season:

The Yankees are too far gone. I don’t even think they’ll come in third or fourth.

[They’ve had] a lot of disabilities. And then they have the controversy — what’s his name, the third baseman who’s been suspended till after 2014? He’s fighting it. And he can play as long he’s in appeal. So he says, “I’ll keep appealing.” He’s got the money, the right lawyers. The Yankees have to be careful how they’re dealing with him. It’s obvious, the Yankees owe him $96 million.

It seems as though the action against him is more severe than some other players in the same position. He should appeal on the basis of that. Some other players got 65 games; he got 214 games or something.

I’m glad to hear the Rays lost yesterday.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Baltimore at San Francisco | 19:10 ET
Bud Norris (138.0 IP, 109 xFIP-, 2.1 WAR) faces Matt Cain (139.0 IP, 102 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR). Here’s the former’s line over two starts with Baltimore following a deadline trade from Houston: 12.0 IP, 27.1% K, 8.3% BB, 50.0% GB, 3.22 SIERA, 78 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR. And here are Baltimore’s playoff odds, per Cool Standings, both now (40.7%) and on July 31st, when the trade was made (38.4%).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or 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 5.7.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Jerome Williams	LAA	3	8	6	7	8	CLE	Justin Masterson	13:05
Justin Verlander	DET	6	8	6	3	5	NYA	Andy Pettitte	13:05
A.J. Griffin	OAK	6	6	7	6	9	TOR	R.A. Dickey	13:07
Ian Kennedy	SD	4	6	4	3	4	CIN	Mike Leake	13:10
Hend. Alvarez	MIA	7	2	7	8	8	ATL	Mike Minor	13:35
John Lackey	BOS	8	8	7	6	5	KC	James Shields	14:10
Kevin Correia	MIN	2	3	3	1	5	CHA	Jose Quintana	14:10
Martin Perez	TEX	7	3	6	4	6	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	14:10
Edwin Jackson	CHN	5	5	5	3	5	STL	Joe Kelly	14:15
Bud Norris	BAL	3	9	5	5	5	SF	Matt Cain	16:05
Wily Peralta	MIL	6	3	7	5	9	SEA	Felix Hernandez	16:10
Jon Niese	NYN	4	6	4	2	5	AZ	Zeke Spruill	16:10
Jeff Locke	PIT	3	7	6	7	8	COL	Chad Bettis*	16:10
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	1	5	2	10	WAS	St. Strasburg	17:05
Jeremy Hellickson	TB	4	10	7	3	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	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.