Daily Notes: It’s R.A. Dickey Night in America

June 24, 2012

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

1. Featured Game: New York AL at New York NL, 20:00 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: New York AL at New York NL, 20:00 ET
Some of the News That’s Fit to Print
Some news that’s fit to print in the present electronic pages is how R.A. Dickey starts tonight for the Mets in their game against the Yankees.

Some News That’s Probably Less Fit to Print
Some news that’s less relevant to these pages, for example, is how British novelist Martin Amis is bringing “macho literary firepower” to Brooklyn.

Regarding Dickey, His Season This Season
Here’s R.A. Dickey’s season line to date (with ranks among 110 qualified starters in parentheses): 99.0 IP (10th), 27.5% K (4th), 5.6% BB (23rd), 53.1% GB (16th), 2.55 SIERA (2nd), 70 xFIP- (3rd), 2.6 WAR (6th).

Regarding Dickey, His Last Seven Starts, In Particular
Dickey has been particularly excellent over his last seven starts. To wit: 54.2 IP, 37.0% K, 3.1% BB, 57.7% GB, 1.57 xFIP.

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Regarding Dickey, What He’ll Bring to This Game, Probably
One never knows, of course, but probably something more agreeable than “macho literary firepower.”

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer New York NL Television (link). That said, this is the ESPN Sunday Night game.

Other Notable Games
Minnesota at Cincinnati | 13:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
The Reds presently occupy first place in the NL Central by 1.0 games over Pittsburgh. Here are the standings for the NL Central, as calculated by WAR:

Team	WAR W	WAR L	WAR%	Behind
Cardinals	42.9	29.1	.596	—
Reds	36.9	33.1	.527	5.0
Brewers	35.5	35.5	.499	7.0
Pirates	31.1	38.9	.444	10.8
Cubs	29.4	41.6	.414	13.1
Astros	29.0	42.0	.408	13.5

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cincinnati Radio.

Tampa Bay at Philadelphia | 18:35 ET
This actually is the second game of what promises to be an entirely well-pitched double-header. David Price (90.2 IP, 81 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR) faces Cole Hamels (97.0 IP, 82 xFIP-, 2.1 WAR) in the first game, which begins at 1:05pm ET. The second game features Alex Cobb (37.2 IP, 82 xFIP-, 0.8 WAR) and Cliff Lee (77.2 IP, 74 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR). Of note regarding Cobb: his ground-ball rate (62.4%) would be second overall among qualified pitchers, behind only Trevor Cahill’s (63.0%).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Philadelphia 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 5.4.

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
David Price	TB	9	4	8	5	9	PHI	Cole Hamels	13:05
Scott Diamond	MIN	6	3	5	4	7	CIN	Mike Leake	13:10
Jesse Chavez*	TOR	4	7	4	2	3	MIA	Mark Buehrle	13:10
Mike Minor	ATL	4	7	6	5	4	BOS	Aaron Cook*	13:35
Justin Verlander	DET	9	4	5	3	0	PIT	Kevin Correia	13:35
Ross Detwiler	WAS	5	4	6	3	7	BAL	Jake Arrieta	13:35
Derek Lowe	CLE	1	5	3	5	6	HOU	J.A. Happ	14:05
Michael Fiers	MIL	7	6	6	6	6	CHA	Jose Quintana	14:10
Lance Lynn	STL	8	10	4	5	0	KC	Jon. Sanchez	14:10
Aaron Harang	LAN	3	4	4	4	5	LAA	Garr. Richards	15:35
Hector Noesi	SEA	3	5	2	5	3	SD	Ed. Volquez	16:05
Matt Cain	SF	7	4	6	4	4	OAK	Bran. McCarthy	16:05
Matt Garza	CHN	8	3	6	6	6	AZ	Wade Miley	16:10
Alex Cobb	TB	7	4	8	5	10	PHI	Cliff Lee	18:35
Alex White	COL	6	10	5	10	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	19:05
CC Sabathia	NYA	9	6	9	1	10	NYN	R.A. Dickey	20:00

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.