Daily Notes: Sunday’s Games, Considered for Your Pleasure

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

1. An Invitation to Curse the Author
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Game Odds, Translated into Winning Percentages

An Invitation to Curse the Author
As the reader will note while inspecting the table below of Sunday’s scheduled games and probable pitchers, today offers what can only be called — or can only be called, at least, by someone affecting the airs of a 19th century flaneur — a “panoply of delights.”

The delights are so ubiquitous, in fact, that the task (for the author) of selecting merely two or three so-called “notable” games has proven quite a chore. A very reasonable person could make a very reasonable case that the author’s choices are the work of a lunatic — or, at the very least, the work of someone typing with one hand while preparing and busily consuming mimosas with the other. I make no apologies, of course*: my biases (for starting pitchers making a debut or something close to a debut) are clear.

*With regard to the present exercise, that is. I make apologies for a number of other things. Most other things, really.

Even so, certain readers will feel slighted by the author’s decisions — either on behalf of their team, or simply on behalf of the abstract concept of justice. Certain of those certain readers will feel compelled to render their dissatisfaction in the form of pointed comments directed at the author.

What this is, is an invitation to do that — with the caveat, that is, that said curses are well crafted and serve, ideally, to invoke audible laughter (or at least a mild chuckle) from other readers.

Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
Washington at Cincinnati | 13:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Stephen Strasburg (7.0 IP, 3 K, 3.03 xFIP in his first start) faces Johnny Cueto (7.0 IP, 9 K, 2.17 xFIP). Cueto, the reader will remember, has distinguished himself these last couple seasons for preventing runs above and beyond what is accounted for by WAR — a topic considered by Dave Cameron in some depth last August.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

Miami at New York NL | 13:10 ET
Very prized and quite young right-hander Jose Fernandez makes his major-league debut for Miami. Here’s where, for example, he ranked on Marc Hulet’s top-100 prospect list: 8th. And on John Sickels’ list: also 8th. And on Baseball America’s list: 5th, actually. And Jason Parks’ list at Baseball Prospectus: 6th. And Bullpen Banter’s: 11th.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

Pittsburgh at Los Angeles NL | 16:10 ET
While this game lacks some of the obvious pleasures of some of today’s other contests, it offers the opportunity for spectators to learn the most, probably — about young Pittsburgh left-hander Jeff Locke (on the one hand) and Los Angeles left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu (on the other). Locke, 25, posted this pretty excellent line in eight appearances (six of them starts) last season: 34.1 IP, 23.0% K, 7.4% BB, 49.0% GB, 3.51 SIERA, 95 xFIP-, 0.1 WAR. Ryu, for his part, was entirely competent in his first major-league start. To wit (box): 6.1 IP, 26 TBF, 5 K, 0 BB, 11 GB on 20 batted-balls (55.0% GB), 1.94 xFIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

Today’s Game Odds, Translated into Winning Percentages
Here — for purposes entirely of entertainment and not for gambling, which is a Scourge of Propriety — are all of today’s games with moneyline odds (from relatively “sharp” sportsbook Pinnacle Sports) translated into projected winning percentages (and adjusted to account for the vigorish).

Games are listed in Eastern Time, as the author has recently bothered to learn how to convert time zones in Excel. Game presented in order, first, of National League and then American League and, finally, then interleague play.