Daily Notes, Featuring Playoff Implications™ in LA

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

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 21:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 21:10 ET
Regarding This Game, What’s Notable About It
What’s notable about this game is mostly the presence of Playoff Implications™ in it.

Regarding the Cardinals, Their Playoff-Odds Status
The Cardinals currently occupy the National League’s second wild-card spot and possess, according to Cool Standings, a 61.5% chance of qualifying for the play-in game.

Regarding the Dodgers, Their Playoff-Odds Status
The Dodgers are currently a game out of that second wild-card spot — the one occupied by the Cardinals, in fact — and possess, also according to Cool Standings, an 18.8% probability of qualifying for the play-in game.

The Starting Pitcher for the Cardinals, Who It Is
Pitching for the Cardinals is left-hander Jaime Garcia, who’s posted this line in five starts since returning from the disabled list in mid-August: 29.2 IP, 20.2% K, 5.4% BB, 49.5% GB, 3.43 SIERA, 82 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR.

The Starting Pitcher for the Dodgers, Who It Is
Pitching for the Dodgers is well-known lunchroom bully Joe Blanton, who’s posted this line in seven starts since joining the Dodgers: 40.1 IP, 18.4% K, 7.8% BB, 44.2% GB, 4.08 SIERA, 98 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR.

The Author’s Druthers, If He Had Them
Were the author to have his druthers, right-handed pitcher and genetically modified super soldier Trevor Rosenthal would make a relief appearance for the St. Louisers.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Los Angeles NL (i.e. Vin Scully) Television (link).

Other Notable Games
Tampa Bay at New York AL | 16:05 ET
Very disgruntled and also dead Romanian E.M. Cioran writes in a spirited critique of St. Paul that “the mob asks to be overwhelmed by invective, by threats and revelations, by shattering pronouncements: the mob loves a shouter.” Resolved: the AL East is the so-called “shouter” of major-league baseball.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay Radio.

New York NL at Milwaukee | 20:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Mets right-handed prospect Jenrry Mejia makes his first major-league start since 2010, during which season he was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. His strikeout rate (12.5%) in 73.2 innings at Triple-A Buffalo this season represents neither a dominant, nor even a league average, figure; however, his fastball sat at ca. 96 mph during a recent two-inning relief appearance versus Atlanta.

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 4.2.

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
Wandy Rodriguez	PIT	4	4	3	1	7	CHN	Jason Berken*	13:05
Clay Buchholz	BOS	4	6	3	5	5	TOR	Carlos Villanueva	13:07
Francisco Liriano	CHA	6	5	3	4	1	MIN	Samuel Deduno	13:10
Anibal Sanchez	DET	6	3	5	2	5	CLE	Justin Masterson	16:05
James Shields	TB	8	5	8	6	7	NYA	Ivan Nova	16:05
Edwin Jackson	WAS	7	7	4	6	4	ATL	Tommy Hanson	16:05
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	4	5	1	4	0	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	19:05
Zack Greinke	LAA	8	8	5	8	2	KC	Jeremy Guthrie	19:10
Johnny Cueto	CIN	8	4	3	4	3	MIA	Mark Buehrle	19:10
Jenrry Mejia*	NYN	11	2	6	9	5	MIL	Shaun Marcum	19:10
Jason Vargas	SEA	3	4	2	7	5	TEX	Scott Feldman	20:05
Barry Zito	SF	0	3	2	6	7	AZ	Wade Miley	20:10
Drew Pomeranz	COL	4	7	5	7	9	SD	Casey Kelly*	20:35
Zach Britton	BAL	6	2	5	6	6	OAK	Jarrod Parker	21:05
Jaime Garcia	STL	8	9	8	1	8	LAN	Joe Blanton	21:10

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.