Daily Notes, Largely Concerning Yesterday’s Debuts

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

1. Yesterday’s Debuts
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Lightly Annotated Video: Garrett Richards’ Last Start
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Yesterday’s Debuts
The Whim of the author has dictated that a portion of today’s Notes — indeed, this portion of the Notes — will be dedicated to equal parts meeting and greeting of baseball’s newest major leaguers.

Player: Bradley Boxberger, RHP, SD
Line: 23.0 IP, 13.70 K/9, 5.87 BB/9, 0.00 HR/9, 2.24 FIP at Triple-A Tucson
Notes: Boxberger, 24, made his debut on Sunday, posting this line: 1.0 IP, 3 TBF, 1 K, 1 BB, 1 GB on 1 batted-ball, 4.05 xFIP. Notably, the minor-league strikeout rate above doesn’t represent much of a departure from his work in previous seasons: over 176.2 minor-league innings, Boxberger has recorded a 12.1 K/9. According to our Marc Hulet, who ranked Boxberger 13th among San Diego prospects, the right-hander’s best pitch is a “fastball that sits around 93-95 mph with good movement.” Indeed, 10 of the 12 pitches Boxberger threw on Sunday were fastballs, two of which got whiffs. Boxberger was promoted when Andrew Cashner, who’s transitioning to the starting rotation, was optioned to Double-A San Antonio over the weekend.

Player: Joe Kelly, RHP, STL
Line: 72.1 IP, 5.60 K/9, 2.61 BB/9, 0.25 HR/9, 3.35 FIP at Triple-A Memphis
Notes: Kelly made his debut on Sunday, getting the start against Cleveland. His line from that: 5.0 IP, 23 TBF, 4 K, 1 BB, 6 GB on 18 batted-balls (33.3% GB), 4.06 xFIP. Hulet ranked Kelly 11th among St. Louis prospects entering the season, noting, in particular, Kelly’s ability to induce ground balls. Indeed, between StatCorner and Minor League Central, it appears as though Kelly’s ground-ball rates have sat in the mid-50% to low-60% range in the minors. Kelly started on Sunday in place of the injured Jaime Garcia, who, according to Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch, will be out a minimum of six-to-eight weeks with “tearing within [his] rotator cuff and his labrum.”

Today’s Notable Games
Washington at Toronto | 19:07 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
The first-place Nationals swept the Red Sox in Boston over the weekend… if you know what I mean.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto or Washington Radio.

Los Angeles AL at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Right-hander Garrett Richards, who probably exceeded expectations in his first start of the season (7.0 IP, 27 TBF, 2.85 xFIP) last week, makes his second start of the season tonight.

Lightly Annotated Video: Garrett Richards’ Last Start
Below is video from Garrett Richards’ first start of the season. Here you’ll find examples of the following pitches: slider at 86 (0:06), fastball at 95 (0:11), slider at 84 (0:16), slider at 86 (0:21), fastball at 96 (0:26), fastball at 95 (0:33), fastball at 95 (0:37), and slider at 84 (0:42).

Note: PITCHf/x indicates that Richards throws a four-seam and cut fastball, whereas he actually probably throws a four- and two-seam fastball (the latter of which he specifically cited after the start in question).

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 6.8.

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
Edwin Jackson	WAS	7	4	7	6	6	TOR	Brandon Morrow	19:07
Josh Beckett	BOS	6	5	7	3	8	MIA	Josh Johnson	19:10
Ivan Nova	NYA	7	6	6	7	5	ATL	Randall Delgado	19:10
Garrett Richards*	LAA	10	3	7	5	5	LAN	Chris Capuano	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.