Daily Notes, Featuring Top Ace Pitchers, Thumbs Up!

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

1. Featured Game: Detroit at Tampa Bay, 19:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Detroit at Tampa Bay, 19:10 ET
Regarding This Game, What’s Notable About It
What’s notable about this game between the Tigers and Rays is how the starters for both teams — that is to say, Justin Verlander (117.2 IP, 82 xFIP-, 3.8 WAR) and David Price (97.2 IP, 83 xFIP-, 1.9 WAR) — are generally regarded as Top Ace Pitchers, Thumbs Up!

Regarding What Makes Them Top Ace Pitchers
In terms of why both Verlander and Price are considered top aces, a lot of it — the lion’s share, one might even say — has to do with their ability to prevent runs.

Verlander and Price, Another of Their Praiseworthy Qualities
Another of Price’s and Verlander’s praiseworthy qualities is how they’ve recorded the second- and fourth-highest average fastball velocities (95.6 and 94.5 mph, respectively) among qualified starters this season.

That Phrase “Top Ace Pitchers, Thumbs Up,” From Where the Author Stole It
It’s very possible that the author was thinking of the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! when he (read: I) referred to Verlander and Price as Top Ace Pitchers, Thumbs Up!

A Brief Clip from That Show
Here’s a brief clip from the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! that I’ve seen before:

Another Brief Clip from That Show
Here’s a second clip from the Tim and Eric Awesome Show:

A Final Thing, Regarding the Rays’ Center-Field Camera
The Rays’ center-field camera is one of the better ones in the league — a virtue that, it must be said, is mitigated slightly by the unsettling shade of green of Tropicana Field’s artificial turf.

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

Other Notable Games
Note: as of quite late on Thursday night — so late, in fact, that one could refer to it as “Friday morning” without any sort of hassle from the authorities — the identity of tonight’s MLB.TV Free Game had as yet to be revealed. Click here to see if that’s changed at all.

Chicago AL at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Right-hander Adam Warren, 24, makes his major-league debut for the Yankees tonight. Warren was ranked 14th among Yankees prospects by our Marc Hulet before the season. Per Hulet, Warren’s fastball (which sits in the low-90s) is solid; his secondary stuff, less so. Warren’s line at Triple-A this year: 86.1 IP, 6.15 K/9, 2.81 BB/9, 0.94 HR/9, 4.23 FIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: None in This Case, Really.

Cincinnati at San Francisco | 22:15 ET
Right-hander Mike Leake has been entirely proficient this year. To wit: 82.2 IP, 16.6% K, 6.0% BB, 46.6% GB, 3.95 SIERA, 92 xFIP-, 1.0 WAR. Of note regarding Leake: according to our PITCHf/x data, he’s throwing six different pitchers at least 8% of the time.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco 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
Bud Norris	HOU	7	6	3	3	3	CHN	Paul Maholm	14:20
Jose Quintana	CHA	7	5	6	6	8	NYA	Adam Warren*	19:05
Derek Lowe	CLE	1	4	4	3	7	BAL	Jake Arrieta	19:05
Ervin Santana	LAA	4	5	5	6	5	TOR	Carl. Villanueva	19:07
Justin Verlander	DET	9	4	8	4	9	TB	David Price	19:10
Cliff Lee	PHI	10	5	6	2	7	MIA	Josh Johnson	19:10
Ross Detwiler	WAS	4	5	5	7	5	ATL	Randall Delgado	19:35
A.J. Griffin*	OAK	6	4	5	10	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	20:05
Ian Kennedy	AZ	6	6	5	6	2	MIL	Randy Wolf	20:10
Luis Mendoza	KC	1	6	2	2	5	MIN	Brian Duensing	20:10
Jason Marquis	SD	2	4	2	10	5	COL	Jeff Francis*	20:10
Kevin Correia	PIT	1	3	6	9	8	STL	Ad. Wainwright	20:15
Aaron Cook*	BOS	3	6	3	4	3	SEA	Hector Noesi	22:10
R.A. Dickey	NYN	10	2	6	3	2	LAN	Aaron Harang	22:10
Mike Leake	CIN	7	4	7	4	7	SF	Matt Cain	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.