Daily Notes, Featuring Matt Harvey’s Ample Repertoire

July 31, 2012

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

1. Featured Game: New York NL at San Francisco, 22:15 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: New York NL at San Francisco, 22:15 ET
What’s Notable About This Game
What’s notable about this game is how Mets right-hander Matt Harvey is starting it for the Mets.

Regarding Matt Harvey, Who That Is
Matt Harvey is the 23-year-old pitching prospect who, in his debut this past Thursday against Arizona, made love to the strike zone with his ample repertoire.

Regarding Harvey, His Line from That Arizona Start
Here’s Harvey’s line from that start against Arizona on Thursday (box): 5.1 IP, 23 TBF, 11 K, 3 BB, 3 GB on 9 batted-balls (33.3% GB), 1.73 xFIP.

Video from the Arizona Start
Here’s video from Harvey’s debut against the Diamondbacks:

Four Notable Pitches from That Video
Here are the four most notable pitches from that video of Harvey’s debut:

• The slider to Gerardo Parra at 0:12.
• The other slider to Gerardo Parra, at 0:52.
• The slider to Aaron Hill at 1:47.
• The fastball to Paul Goldschmidt at 1:54.

Other Video of Harvey
Here’s a different, and even more filthy, video of Harvey:

REMOVED BY ADMINISTRATOR

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer San Francisco Radio (link) — although, New York NL Television will likely have the sexier replays of Matt Harvey’s slider.

Other Notable Games
Detroit at Boston | 19:10 ET
Justin Verlander (155.2 IP, 82 xFIP-, 4.2 WAR),, tied with Zack Greinke for the league lead in pitching WAR, throws in front of the considerably above-average Boston camera.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit or Boston radio.

St. Louis at Colorado | 20:40 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
The league’s three unluckiest teams, according to WAR:

Team	W	L	Win%	WAR W	WAR L	WAR%	Diff
Cardinals	54	48	.529	61.5	40.5	.603	7.5
Phillies	45	57	.441	51.4	50.6	.504	6.4
Rockies	37	63	.370	42.8	57.2	.428	5.8

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis 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 4.9.

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
Chris Tillman	BAL	5	0	4	7	6	NYA	Ivan Nova	19:05
Cliff Lee	PHI	9	5	7	7	10	WAS	Stephe. Strasburg	19:05
Justin Verlander	DET	9	4	8	5	6	BOS	Josh Beckett	19:10
Ricky Nolasco	MIA	4	3	5	8	8	ATL	Kris Medlen*	19:10
Jason Marquis	SD	4	6	3	4	6	CIN	Homer Bailey	19:10
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	6	5	8	5	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
A.J. Burnett	PIT	7	4	4	0	6	CHN	Ryan Dempster	20:05
Francisco Liriano	CHA	7	4	3	4	1	MIN	Nick Blackburn	20:10
Derek Lowe	CLE	1	4	2	7	5	KC	Luke Hochevar	20:10
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	0	5	2	7	6	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	20:10
Kyle Lohse	STL	4	9	5	8	5	COL	Jeff Francis	20:40
James Shields	TB	8	4	7	6	6	OAK	Tommy Milone	22:05
Wade Miley	AZ	7	7	6	1	6	LAN	Chris Capuano	22:10
Aaron Laffey	TOR	4	8	3	4	3	SEA	Jason Vargas	22:10
Matt Harvey*	NYN	14	4	9	3	7	SF	Tim Lincecum	22:15

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.