Daily Notes: On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly

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

1. On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly
A Note Regarding Jose Fernandez
Following his performance on Friday against Cleveland (box), Miami right-hander Jose Fernandez has recorded 27 strikeouts and a single walk against 56 batters over two starts and 16.0 innings, posting a 0.29 xFIP and 1.2 WAR over that interval.

Fernandez’s Achievement in Context, Part I
According to Baseball Reference’s Play Index, a pitcher has recorded 13-plus strikeouts in consecutive games only 26 times since 1979 (both an arbitrary start date and also the year of the author’s birth). Fernandez is the first pitcher to do so since Randy Johnson in 2004.

Fernandez’s Achievement in Context, Part II
According to that same Play Index search, only 13 individual pitchers have recorded 13-plus strikeouts in consecutive starts since 1979. Randy Johnson is first by that measure, having accomplished the feat eight times. Pedro Martinez is second, with five such streaks. Mike Moore is likely the most obscure pitcher on the list. In 1988, he recorded 29 strikeouts over 18.0 innings as a starter for Seattle.

Fernandez’s Achievement in Context, Part III
Per Baseball Reference, Fernandez has recorded Game Scores of 77 and 89 over his most recent two starts. Hundreds of pitchers, it turns out, have matched that accomplishment (i.e. consecutive games of a 77-plus Game Score) since 1979. Orel Hershiser and J.R. Richard have the record at six such consecutive starts, in 1988 and 1979, respectively.

Fernandez’s Achievement in Context, Part IV
One finds, by means of a similar search, that pitchers have recorded consecutive Game Scores of 77-plus 12 times this season. Clayton Kershaw is the only pitcher to have done it twice. Fernandez’s 27 strikeouts over such a two-game interval are the most by a significant margin (Justin Masterson, 20).

Video Footage: Fernandez’s 14 Strikeouts
Here’s real video of all Fernandez’s 14 strikeouts from Friday — all but two of them (i.e. those strikeouts) coming by way of the curveball, it appears:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Kansas City at New York NL | 13:10 ET
Bruce Chen (51.2 IP, 121 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Carlos Torres (32.2 IP, 89 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR). Approximately 10 minutes before the present post was published, is when this game began.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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 5.3.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Bruce Chen*	KC	3	6	5	7	6	NYN	Carlos Torres*	13:10
Brandon Beachy*	ATL	7	7	6	1	5	PHI	Undecided	16:05
Chris Capuano	LAN	5	3	6	5	8	CHN	Jeff Samardzija	16:05
Matt Garza	TEX	5	3	4	6	3	OAK	Jarrod Parker	16:05
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	3	8	6	7	9	PIT	Francisco Liriano	19:05
Erasmo Ramirez*	SEA	5	5	5	8	5	BAL	Undecided	19:05
John Danks	CHA	6	1	7	8	10	DET	Max Scherzer	19:08
Patrick Corbin	AZ	9	2	7	8	7	BOS	Jake Peavy	19:10
Zach McAllister	CLE	3	7	4	1	6	MIA	Jacob Turner	19:10
Erik Bedard	HOU	1	4	2	2	3	MIN	Kyle Gibson	19:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	8	5	8	10	8	TB	David Price	19:10
Jake Westbrook	STL	1	3	4	3	8	CIN	Tony Cingrani	19:10
Dan Haren	WAS	7	2	5	5	3	MIL	Donovan Hand	19:10
Ivan Nova	NYA	8	2	6	6	5	SD	Tyson Ross	20:40
Esmil Rogers	TOR	5	7	5	7	4	LAA	Jered Weaver	19:05

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.