Daily Notes: Say Hi to Your Mother for Us

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

1. A Note for the Mothers
2. Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Baltimore, 13:35 ET
3. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Note for the Mothers
Please, if you would, say hello to your mother for FanGraphs.

And for Mark Wahlberg, too, if you have time:

Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Baltimore, 13:35 ET
First of All, Who’s Pitching
Pitching in this game are decorated British general James Shields (47.1 IP, 75 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) for Tampa Bay and noted Italian avant garde filmmaker Jake Arrieta (44.2 IP, 85 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) for Baltimore.

Regarding Shields, A Note on His Ground-Ball Rate
Shields’ ground-ball rate (59.6%) is currently more than 13 percentage points above his highest previous single-season mark (46.3% in 2008). Note that ground-ball rate becomes reliable at about 150 batters faced, while Shields has already faced 197 opposing batters, suggesting that Shields’ improvement is authentic at some level.

Regarding Arrieta, A Note on His Success, Generally
In his previous two major-league seasons, Arrieta has posted xFIP-s of 124 and 112 in 100.1 and 119.1 innings, respectively — and, in both of those seasons, he posted walk rates above 10%. This season so far, Arrieta has walked batters at about half that rate (5.6%).

Briefly, On Baltimore’s Record
Baltimore’s current record is 22-12, best in the AL East.

Briefly, On Baltimore’s WAR Record
Baltimore’s WAR record — which is entirely infallible and should never be questioned — is 18-16, which is second best in the AL East after New York’s, which is 20-13.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Tampa Bay Television, but just by a little (link).

Other Notable Games
Seattle at New York AL | 13:05 ET
Former and present Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte makes his season debut.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle.

Toronto at Minnesota | 14:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Left-hander Scott Diamond starts for Minnesota. His season debut was (probably surprisingly) impressive. Line: 7.0 IP, 25 TBF, 6 K, 1 BB, 12 GB on 18 batted-balls (66.7%).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Minnesota.

Atlanta at St. Louis | 14:15 ET
Lance Lynn (38.2 IP, 80 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR) starts for St. Louis. He continues to be excellent for the Cardinals — as do many of the other Cardinals, who lead the league in batter WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Neither, Really.

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.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Kevin Millwood	SEA	2	3	6	7	10	NYA	Andy Pettitte*	13:05
Jonathon Niese	NYN	6	2	5	4	5	MIA	Carlos Zambrano	13:10
Edwin Jackson	WAS	8	2	6	3	5	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	13:10
Justin Masterson	CLE	2	4	3	5	3	BOS	Daniel Bard	13:35
Wandy Rodriguez	HOU	4	6	6	2	10	PIT	A.J. Burnett	13:35
Jeff Suppan*	SD	1	5	5	3	9	PHI	Cole Hamels	13:35
James Shields	TB	7	6	7	5	7	BAL	Jake Arrieta	13:35
Jeff Samardzija	CHN	10	3	7	6	5	MIL	Marco Estrada	14:10
Danny Duffy	KC	5	8	5	5	5	CHA	Philip Humber	14:10
Ricky Romero	TOR	4	6	5	2	7	MIN	Scott Diamond*	14:10
Tommy Hanson	ATL	4	8	7	10	9	STL	Lance Lynn	14:15
Justin Verlander	DET	8	1	5	4	3	OAK	Jarrod Parker	16:05
Alex White*	COL	8	8	6	6	3	LAN	Ted Lilly	16:10
Barry Zito	SF	0	4	2	6	3	AZ	Joe Saunders	16:10
Jered Weaver	LAA	6	2	5	10	4	TEX	Neftali Feliz	20:05

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.