Daily Notes, Sans Cistulli 2: Electric Boogaloo

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

1. Leaderboards of Yesterday
2. An Very Watchable International League Matchup
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule, Featuring Entirely Discretionary Watchability Scores

 
Leaderboards of Yesterday

If you’re like me, you’re nostalgic for yesterday. If you’re exactly like me, you were hot-tubbing with several friends yesterday in a reasonably priced rental home in Salt Lake City, enjoying perfect weather, having just attended the most beautiful, perfectly-planned wedding you’ve ever attended, a wedding for two dear and generously talented people. Which means, of course, that you have little idea what went on in the world of Major League Baseball. In which case you’ll want to catch up quickly by viewing the following leaderboards of yesterday:

Leaderboards of Yesterday’s Batters:

Leaderboards of Yesterday’s Pitchers:

 
An Very Watchable International League Matchup

Today in Columbus, Ohio, the hometown Clippers will host the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. One thing that makes this game watchable is the fact that “IronPigs” is presented as one word, and the fact that IronPig is a concept at all. In Lehigh Valley, historically, one (a pig) would root around in the earth until one uncovered iron, which one could sell for gold or trade for foodslop. One also likely ended up with some type of respiratory condition. While watching this game between the Clippers and the IronPigs, a viewer might amuse him/herself during “down time” by imagining a community of pigs uncovering iron and also building an whole PigEconomy based around iron.

Another thing that might make this game watchable is that it features a two volatile starting pitchers with MLB experience. Carlos Zambrano starts for the IronPigs. In 28.1 minor league innings (five games) Zambrano has posted a 0.95 ERA, a 3.31 FIP, and a 4.17 SIERA while striking out 20.4% of hitters and walking 10.6% of them. He’s also posted a serviceable 44.9% groundball rate.

The Clippers will start still-prospect Trevor Bauer. While Bauer has been underwhelming in the Majors this year (6.18 SIERA in three starts for the Indians), he’s been much better at AAA (3.89 SIERA in 11 starts). Control has been Bauer’s bane this season, even in the minors, as he’s walked 12.2% of batters he’s faced. If you have an MiLB.TV package, tune in for plenty of walks, awful raps, potential tantrums, and PigFantasies.

 
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Minnesota at Cleveland | 13:05 ET

A nearly unwatchable game that pits Mike Pelfrey against Carlos Carrasco.

One thing that can be said of Pelfrey: in his last two starts he’s been inducing an almost elite number of groundball outs, something that is sure to excite at least half of one reader/viewer. At a glance, one might think that this is due to Pelfrey’s increased usage of his breaking pitchers — particularly his sinker — and a decreased use of his fourseam fastball. Indeed, in his last two starts, Pelfrey has generated a 68.42 GB% on balls in play using his sinker (which comprised 51.7% of all pitches thrown in those two starts), and a 60% groundball rate on BIP with his curve (10.3% of pitchers thrown in those starts).

One things that can be said of Carlos Carrasco: his 55.6 LOB% would easily be last among qualified Starting Pitchers this year, and currently sixth worst among SP with at least 15 IP (the exact number of innings that Carrasco has pitched this in the Majors this season). His BABIP has been off the charts in his three Major League starts, two, hovering around .350.

Viewers might watch this game perhaps with the small hope that Carrasco will regress up to the mean in these categories. Or they might watch this game because they are addicted to baseball and don’t have a full MLB.tv package. They might also watch this game because they are masochists.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

 
Today’s Complete Schedule, Featuring Entirely Discretionary Watchability Scores

Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with Watchability Scores that exhibit an entirely discretionary (i.e. at the sole discretion of the not-so-handsome author) and decidedly “all-or-nothing” approach. This means that I, the author, assigned only 10’s or 0’s for both Team and Pitcher watchability, based on my own proclivities. (Using the first-person pronoun in writing is also something I do at my own discretion, though it is spurned and even guffawed at by my editor, Carson Cistulli, for whom I am filling in.) The Game Watchability Scores are the sum of all Team and Pitcher scores. Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away SP	0	SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP	0	Home	Time
Mike Pelfrey	MIN	0	0	10	10	0	CLE	Carlos Carrasco	13:05
Freddy Garcia	BAL	0	10	20	10	0	TOR	Josh Johnson	13:07
Felix Doubront	BOS	0	0	20	10	10	DET	Justin Verlander	13:08
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	0	10	10	0	0	WAS	Ross Detwiler	13:35
Matt Harvey	NYM	10	0	10	0	0	PHI	John Lannan	13:35
Chris Archer	TBR	0	0	0	0	0	NYY	Ivan Nova	14:05
Paul Maholm	ATL	0	0	0	0	0	MIL	Alfredo Figaro	14:10
Dylan Axelrod	CHW	0	0	10	0	10	KCR	James Shields	14:10
Jordan Lyles	HOU	10	0	20	0	10	CHC	Jeff Samardzija	14:20
Charlie Morton	PIT	0	10	10	0	0	LAA	Joe Blanton	15:35
Nathan Eovaldi	MIA	0	0	0	0	0	SFG	Matt Cain	16:05
Mat Latos	CIN	0	10	20	0	10	ARZ	Randall Delgado	16:10
Chris Capuano	LAD	0	10	30	10	10	SDP	Andrew Cashner	16:10
Jarrod Parker	OAK	0	10	20	0	10	SEA	Jeremy Bonderman	16:10
Nick Tepesch	TEX	0	0	20	10	10	STL	Adam Wainwright	20:05