Daily Notes: Roy Oswalt to Make Rangers Debut

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

1. Featured Game: Colorado at Texas, 20:05 ET
2. A Very Notable Other Game (With a Note on the MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Colorado at Texas, 20:05 ET
Regarding This Game, What the Big Deal Is
The big deal regarding this game is that 34-year-old right-hander Roy Oswalt is starting it for Texas.

Some Relevant Information Regarding Roy Oswalt
In terms of Roy Oswalt, these are facts about him:

• His most recent regular-season start was on September 27 of last year (box).
• His velocity was in the 88-92 mph range last season before back problems forced Oswalt to the DL. Upon his return, Oswalt’s velocity increased slightly, sitting more around 91-95.
• A free agent after 2011, he signed with Texas at the end of May.
• Two or three minutes’ worth of internet searches suggest that Oswalt’s fastball is probably sitting in the low-90s at the moment — or, at least that’s what it was doing in his second-to-last warmup start.
• He posted this line in a total of four minor-league starts between Double- and Triple-A: 15.1 IP, 13 K, 4 BB, 1 HR.

Impact Video Footage
Here’s a clip of Oswalt recording a strikeout against an extra in the movie called Roy Oswalt’s Comeback.

Impact Video Footage, Part II
Here’s some more footage, also from the totally real film called Roy Oswalt’s Comeback.

What You’re Thinking
Here’s what you’re thinking: “Is that Mark Curry, of ‘Hanging with Mr. Cooper’ fame, in that movie about Roy Oswalt?”

The Answer to That Question
Here’s the answer to that: “Yes.”

Facing Oswalt
Facing Oswalt, and also all the hitters on the Rangers, is left-hander Christian Friedrich. Here’s his entirely serviceable line: 45.0 IP, 21.8% K, 8.7% BB, 38.1% GB, 3.73 SIERA, 98 xFIP-, 0.7 WAR.

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

A Very Notable Other Game
Note: as of early Friday morning, the identity of the MLB.TV Free Game for the day had yet to be revealed.

Milwaukee at Chicago AL | 20:10 ET
The very impressive Zack Greinke (87.0 IP, 64 xFIP-, 3.3 WAR) faces the almost as impressive Chris Sale (90.1 IP, 78 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee 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 5.8.

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
Doug Fister	DET	6	4	7	2	7	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
James Shields	TB	8	5	8	5	10	PHI	Cliff Lee	19:05
Jor. Zimmermann	WAS	9	4	8	3	7	BAL	Jason Hammel	19:05
Jair Jurrjens*	ATL	3	7	7	5	7	BOS	Jon Lester	19:10
Nick Blackburn	MIN	1	3	2	4	5	CIN	Homer Bailey	19:10
Andy Pettitte	NYA	9	6	7	1	7	NYN	Jonathon Niese	19:10
Ricky Romero	TOR	2	6	4	2	7	MIA	Anibal Sanchez	19:10
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	0	4	2	5	4	HOU	Lucas Harrell	20:05
Chris. Friedrich	COL	7	10	9	10	14	TEX	Roy Oswalt*	20:05
Zack Greinke	MIL	10	7	9	6	10	CHA	Chris Sale	20:10
Joe Kelly*	STL	7	10	6	5	4	KC	Vin Mazzaro	20:10
Jeff Samardzija	CHN	10	3	6	6	2	AZ	Joe Saunders	21:40
Chad Billingsley	LAN	5	4	5	4	6	LAA	Dan Haren	22:05
Kevin Millwood	SEA	3	5	2	5	4	SD	Clayton Richard	22:05
Tim Lincecum	SF	6	4	5	4	3	OAK	Jarrod Parker	22:05

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.