Daily Notes, Featuring Sunday’s Best Pitch, Probably

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

1. Featured Feature: Sunday’s Best Pitch, Probably
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Feature: Sunday’s Best Pitch, Probably
Regarding Sunday’s Best Pitch, What It Probably Was
Sunday’s best pitch was probably San Diego reliever Cory Burns‘ changeup, which he (i.e. Burns) threw 12 times and on which he (i.e. still Burns) induced seven swinging strikes (for a swinging-strike rate of 58.3%).

Regarding the Changeup, Its Swinging-Strike Rate Usually
The league-average swinging-strike rate on changeups is about 15%, according to Harry Pavlidis of the internet.

Regarding the Changeup, Its Best-Case Swinging-Strike Rate
Here are some pitchers (in no discernible order) with notable changeups and the swinging-strike rates of those same changeups this season:

• Stephen Strasburg, 27.4%
• Felix Hernandez, 15.0%
• Tim Lincecum, 23.6%
• Kelvin Herrera, 24.5%
• Cole Hamels, 28.4%

Regarding Cory Burns’ Changeup, Footage of It
Here’s an animated GIF of one of Cory Burns’ changeups from Sunday — in this case to pinch-hitter Hector Sanchez:

Regarding the Word Probably, The Author’s Use of It in the Title
The author has used the word probably in the title of the present post, on account of it’s entirely possible that there was an even better pitch Sunday than Cory Burns’ changeup. However, to determine such a thing objectively is decidedly outside the (already very modest) capacities of the author at present.

Today’s Notable Games
Atlanta at Washington | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
This game is perhaps less interesting than one might assume at first glance, owing to how the Braves’ and Nationals’ respective playoff probabilities are both already so considerable. Per Cool Standings, Washington has a 99.1% chance of making the postseason; Atlanta, 90.7%.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio.

San Francisco at Los Angeles (NL) | 22:10 ET
Of note regarding this game is not only that the teams involved are separated by a mere 0.5 games in the division, but also that the starting pitchers, Madison Bumgarner (163.2 IP, 84 xFIP-, 3.2 WAR) and Clayton Kershaw (170.2 IP, 84 xFIP-, 4.2 WAR), are likely to engage in what one might refer to as a “duel” — unless the “one” in question is Alexander Hamilton, that is, for whom the term is decidedly fraught.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL 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 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
Tim Hudson	ATL	4	8	5	6	9	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Mike Leake	CIN	7	5	5	5	8	PHI	Roy Halladay	19:05
Alex White	COL	4	8	5	2	10	NYN	R.A. Dickey	19:10
Will Smith	KC	4	8	2	4	2	TB	Jeremy Hellickson	19:10
Miguel Gonzalez	BAL	3	1	4	6	6	TEX	Ryan Dempster	20:05
Justin Germano	CHN	5	1	5	8	10	MIL	Mark Rogers	20:10
Freddy Garcia	NYA	5	7	4	4	4	CHA	Gavin Floyd	20:10
Mark Buehrle	MIA	4	3	3	7	3	AZ	Joe Saunders	21:40
Brian Duensing	MIN	2	4	3	6	4	OAK	Brandon McCarthy	22:05
Undecided	PIT	5	5	4	5	4	SD	Edinson Volquez	22:05
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	1	3	1	4	4	SEA	Kevin Millwood	22:10
Madis. Bumgarner	SF	9	3	9	1	10	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.