Daily Notes, Featuring the Big Todd Redmond Debut

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

1. Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
This game is notable on account of it features the major-league debut of Todd Redmond, who starts for the Reds.

Regarding Todd Redmond, Who That Even Is
Todd Redmond is a 27-year-old right-hander drafted originally by Pittsburgh in the 39th round of the 2004 draft out of St. Petersburg College. He was traded to Atlanta in 2008 and then again, about a month ago, to Cincinnati in exchange for Paul Janish.

Regarding Todd Redmond, His Numbers at Triple-A This Season
Here’s Todd Redmond’s Triple-A line at Triple-A this season: 134.2 IP, 8.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9, 3.62 FIP.

Regarding Todd Redmond, What He Throws
As best as the author can ascertain from the internet, Todd Redmond throws a fastball at around 90 mph, a curveball, a slider, and a changeup.

Regarding Todd Redmond, What He Throws (Part II)
From a piece by David O’Brien this June:

“We always give him (grief) because he’s got the invisi-ball,” said Kris Medlen, who played with Redmond in Gwinnett this year and Double-A Mississippi in 2008. “He always goes seven or eight innings, but he throws these belt-high to belly button-high 90 mph (fastballs). If I threw them they’d get crushed but it doesn’t. Some things you can’t explain.”

Regarding “Some Things You Can’t Explain,” Other Examples
Here are three other things you can’t explain:

• The works — all of them — of French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
• What is a Lyman-alpha forest.
• The ladies! (Amirite, fellas?!? Yuk, yuk, yuk.)

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Chicago Radio (link).

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Cleveland at Oakland | 21:05 ET
Through his first three career major-league starts, right-hander Corey Kluber, who pitches tonight for Cleveland, has thrown his fastball at an average of 93.5 mph, a figure that would place him eighth among all qualified starters (tied with Edinson Volquez) by that measurement.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland 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 4.4.

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
Roy Oswalt	TEX	9	6	5	6	6	TOR	C. Villanueva	13:07
Jeff Samardzija	CHN	10	1	5	4	7	CIN	Johnny Cueto	13:10
Jon Lester	BOS	7	6	5	7	7	NYA	David Phelps*	16:05
Erik Bedard	PIT	5	5	7	9	7	STL	Lance Lynn	16:05
Patrick Corbin	AZ	7	7	5	4	6	HOU	Jordan Lyles	19:05
Zach Britton	BAL	2	1	4	4	7	DET	Rick Porcello	19:05
Jon Niese	NYN	7	2	4	6	6	WAS	Edwin Jackson	19:05
Jake Peavy	CHA	6	5	4	8	4	KC	Bruce Chen	19:10
Brooks Raley*	CHN	4	1	4	4	10	CIN	Todd Redmond*	19:10
Aaron Harang	LAN	2	1	4	8	6	ATL	Ben Sheets	19:10
Cole Hamels	PHI	9	5	6	8	7	MIL	Mike Fiers	19:10
Nathan Eovaldi	MIA	4	3	2	8	4	COL	Tyler Chatwood*	20:10
Barry Zito	SF	0	3	1	6	2	SD	Eric Stults	20:35
Corey Kluber*	CLE	7	3	5	6	4	OAK	Bartolo Colon	21:05
Alex Cobb	TB	7	4	7	8	4	LAA	C.J. Wilson	21:05
Scott Diamond	MIN	6	4	2	4	3	SEA	Jason Vargas	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.