Daily Notes: It’s R.A. Dickey Night in America
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.
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
I always feel a bit sad for the few pitchers with a zero NERD.
me2. I try to watch them.