Daily Notes: Seriously, the Cardinals Offense

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

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 22:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 22:10 ET
Status Update: St. Louis Offense
As of Friday, St. Louis continued to lead the majors both in batter WAR (13.3) and wRC+ (128).

Other Status Update: St. Louis Offense
On Friday, St. Louis scored four runs through the first three innings* of their game against Ted Lilly and the Dodgers (although, as their .322 wOBA through those first three innings indicates, it wasn’t necessarily a dominant performance early on).

*At which point, the author, who shares a great deal in common with America’s geriatric population, made his way bedward.

A Hypothetical Cardinals Lineup
Below is a hypothetical — perhaps even likely — lineup for the Cardinals tonight. (Note: WAR/600 is WAR per 600 plate appearances so far this season.)

Num	Name	POS	PA	BABIP	wRC+	WAR	WAR/600
1	Rafael Furcal	SS	167	.400	166	2.2	7.9
2	Tyler Greene	2B	76	.295	118	0.3	2.4
3	Matt Holliday	LF	170	.283	124	1.5	5.3
4	Carlos Beltran	RF	146	.299	188	2.0	8.2
5	Lance Berkman	1B	47	.433	155	0.4	5.1
6	David Freese	3B	146	.315	135	1.3	5.3
7	Yadier Molina	C	140	.303	147	1.8	7.7
8	Shane Robinson	CF	56	.333	91	0.6	6.4
–	Average	–	118.5	–	–	1.3	6.4

Of Note Regarding That Lineup
Of note regarding that hypothetical — perhaps even likely — lineup is that the batters in it have averaged 6.4 WAR per 600 plate appearances so far this season, which would be an MVP-worthy season from an individual.

Regarding If You Replace Beltran with Craig
If you replace the semi-injured Carlos Beltran in that lineup with Allen Craig, the team’s average production drops… all the way to 6.3 WAR per 600 plate appearances.

Starting Pitchers
Cardinals right-hander Jake Westbrook (46.0 IP, 91 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR) faces Dodger lefty Clayton Kershaw (52.2 IP, 84 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
FanGraphs readers prefer Dodgers Television (link).

Other Notable Games
New York NL at Toronto | 13:07 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
In a discussion of Defensive Run Efficiency at The Book blog on Thursday, Tom Tango found that Toronto leads the league so far this season in converting balls in play to outs (link). As for the Mets, they’re 28th-best at that.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

Pittsburgh at Detroit | 16:05 ET
With the exception of one decidedly miserable start on May 2nd at St. Louis, during which he conceded 12 runs in just 2.2 innings, A.J. Burnett has been excellent so far as a Pirate. Line: 31.2 IP, 23.3% K, 5.3% BB, 54.8% GB, 2.73 SIERA, 72 xFIP-, 0.7 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit 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 5.3.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Homer Bailey	CIN	5	4	6	6	7	NYA	Ivan Nova	13:05
Miguel Batista*	NYN	1	2	4	6	6	TOR	Brandon Morrow	13:07
Anibal Sanchez	MIA	8	4	5	4	3	CLE	Jeanmar Gomez	16:05
Tyson Ross	OAK	4	4	3	4	1	SF	Ryan Vogelsong	16:05
A.J. Burnett	PIT	10	1	7	2	7	DET	Drew Smyly	16:05
Randall Delgado	ATL	5	8	6	7	7	TB	Alex Cobb*	16:10
Carl Pavano	MIN	3	2	4	5	4	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	16:10
Jason Vargas	SEA	3	3	6	7	10	COL	Christ. Friedrich*	16:10
Ian Kennedy	AZ	5	5	5	6	5	KC	Bruce Chen	19:15
Jason Hammel	BAL	8	6	7	4	6	WAS	Ross Detwiler	19:15
Jon Lester	BOS	4	6	5	4	6	PHI	Joe Blanton	19:15
John Danks	CHA	1	4	4	3	8	CHN	Ryan Dempster	19:15
Derek Holland	TEX	6	10	5	6	2	HOU	Lucas Harrell	19:15
Dan Haren	LAA	6	2	4	5	3	SD	Eric Stults*	22:05
Jake Westbrook	STL	6	10	8	6	9	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	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.