Daily Notes: The Sheets Is About to Get Real

July 21, 2012

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

1. Featured Game: Atlanta at Washington, 13:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Atlanta at Washington, 13:05 ET
Regarding What’s Notable About This Game
What’s notable about this game is that Ben Sheets is making his second major-league start of the season in it and also his second major-league start of the last two seasons.

Sheets’ First Start
Here’s Sheets’ line from his first start of the last two seasons, home against the Mets on July 15th (box): 6.0 IP, 21 TBF, 5 K, 1 BB, 3 GB on 15 batted-balls (20%), 3.85 xFIP.

Video of Sheets’ First Start
Here’s video from that same July 15th start:

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Regarding “July 15th,” The Name of the Number Part in That
A number with digits and then a suffix (-th, -st, -nd, and -rd) like that is called an “ordinal abbreviation” — as opposed to what’s referred to as a “cardinal number” (as in “July 15”).

What Site Editor Robert Sanchez Says About Ordinal Abbreviations
Site editor Robert Sanchez says that FanGraphs authors ought just to employ cardinal numbers, and not ordinal abbreviations, when writing dates.

What the Author Says Back to Robert Sanchez
“Whatever, Sanchez. What are you, my dad or something?”

A Plot Turn, What a Good One Would Be
If Robert Sanchez were actually the author’s father, is what.

Reality, What a Harrowing One Would Be
If Robert Sanchez were actually the author’s father, is also what.

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

Other Notable Games
Chicago AL at Detroit | 16:05 ET
As of Saturday morning, left-hander Chris Sale (who pitches for the White Sox today) is third among all pitchers in WAR (3.8). Also of note: these teams are now separated by just half a game in the AL Central.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

Atlanta at Washington | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
This is the second game of a day-night doubleheader… if you know what I mean.*

*What the author means is, is there was an earlier game between Atlanta and Washington, and that this is the second one from the same day, but it’s happening more in the evening, is what.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta 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 4.8.

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
Ben Sheets*	ATL	10	8	8	7	6	WAS	Edwin Jackson	13:05
Chris Capuano	LAN	6	1	5	3	2	NYN	Miguel Batista*	13:10
Chris Sale	CHA	10	5	8	4	6	DET	Rick Porcello	16:05
Matt Cain	SF	7	4	6	5	9	PHI	Cole Hamels	16:05
Yu Darvish	TEX	7	8	5	6	3	LAA	Ervin Santana	16:05
Rand. Delgado	ATL	5	8	5	7	4	WAS	John Lannan*	19:05
Chris Tillman*	BAL	8	1	6	5	7	CLE	Zach McAllister	19:05
Carl. Zambrano	MIA	1	3	3	4	8	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	6	7	4	4	4	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	19:10
Scott Diamond	MIN	6	3	3	6	3	KC	Luis Mendoza	19:10
Jason Vargas	SEA	3	4	4	5	6	TB	Alex Cobb	19:10
Carl. Villanueva*	TOR	8	7	5	6	1	BOS	Aaron Cook	19:10
Matt Garza	CHN	8	1	6	9	5	STL	Jake Westbrook	19:15
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	0	4	3	6	7	AZ	Wade Miley	20:10
Jeff Francis	COL	3	9	1	5	0	SD	Kip Wells	20:35
Phil Hughes	NYA	5	7	5	4	5	OAK	Jarrod Parker	21:05

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.