Daily Notes: Two Notable Rookie Performances from Saturday

May 19, 2013

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

1. Two Notable Rookie Performances from Saturday
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Two Notable Rookie Performances from Saturday
Two rookie pitchers made notable appearances on Saturday. What follows is Priceless Information regarding both.

Player: Danny Farquhar, RHP, Seattle (Profile)
Line: 2.2 IP, 8 TBF, 5 K, 0 BB, 1 GB on 3 batted-balls, 0.36 xFIP
Notes: Having been dominant so far this season at Triple-A Tacoma (20.0 IP, 30 K, 4 BB), the 26-year-old Farquhar was promoted Friday. Saturday’s 2.2-inning relief performance represented the right-hander’s major-league debut. Farquhar’s 0.36 xFIP was the lowest among any pitcher to record more than a single inning of work on Saturday. He sat at 92-96 with his four-seam fastball and complemented it what what appears to be a cutter or slider and also a slower (ca. 80 mph) curve. Of the 17 pitches classified by Brooks Baseball as four-seam fastballs, Farquhar recorded four swinging strikes.

Here’s a fastball for a strikeout against Mark Reynolds in the seventh inning:

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And another to Drew Stubbs for a strikeout in the following inning:

Player: Tom Koehler, RHP, Miami (Profile)
Line: 6.0 IP, 23 TBF, 7 K, 2 BB, 9 GB on 14 batted-balls, 2.66 xFIP
Notes: Making just his third career major-league start, Koehler posted the lowest single-game xFIP among all starters on Saturday, en route to conceding just a single run in six innings against Arizona. Of note: his fastball sat in the 91-95 mph range, and he was still hitting 94, it appears, towards the end of his appearance. Though he threw it only six times, his cutter/slider was quite effective, inducing three swinging strikes.

Here he is throwing it to Paul Goldschmidt in the first inning on an 0-1 count:

And again, on a 1-2 count, for the strikeout — in slow motion, in this case:

Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
Seattle at Cleveland ***MLB.TV Free Game*** | 13:05 ET
Conveniently, today’s most watchable game is also its free-est one. Felix Hernandez (64.2 IP, 65 xFIP-, 2.2 WAR) faces Justin Masterson (63.0 IP, 91 xFIP-, 1.4 WAR). The latter has posted so far what would be a career-best strikeout rate (23.2%) — and what is about six percentage points higher than his established level between 2010 and 2012.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

Detroit at Texas | 20:05 ET
Were the Steamer and ZiPS projections systems to play out the remainder of the season — and not the actual players in the major leagues themselves — these two clubs would likely share the distinction of best record in baseball.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas 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 4.9.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Felix Hernandez	SEA	10	6	8	9	6	CLE	Ju. Masterson	13:05
R.A. Dickey	TOR	9	4	7	5	6	NYA	CC Sabathia	13:05
Wade Miley	AZ	4	4	3	0	3	MIA	Ricky Nolasco	13:10
Homer Bailey	CIN	9	5	5	0	3	PHI	Jon. Pettibone	13:35
Lucas Harrell	HOU	0	4	2	7	2	PIT	Jeff Locke	13:35
Matt Magill*	LAN	4	2	5	8	6	ATL	Mike Minor	13:35
Matt Moore	TB	5	7	5	8	3	BAL	Chris Tillman	13:35
John Lackey	BOS	7	8	5	3	2	MIN	Pe. Hernandez	14:10
Kyle Lohse	MIL	5	6	5	2	6	STL	John Gast*	14:15
Dillon Gee	NYN	3	7	4	4	4	CHN	Travis Wood	14:20
Jake Peavy	CHA	8	0	5	5	3	LAA	Jason Vargas	15:35
Luis Mendoza	KC	4	6	5	6	5	OAK	A.J. Griffin	16:05
Barry Zito	SF	2	6	4	8	3	COL	Juan Nicasio	16:10
Dan Haren	WAS	4	2	4	5	5	SD	And. Cashner	16:10
Doug Fister	DET	6	7	7	4	9	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.

10 Comments

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Newest Most Voted

Mrs. Gattis

13 years ago

You mention notable rookie performances from Saturday but overlook Gattis’s 8th inning, game winning pinch-hit homerun against Kenley Jansen?

cnote66Member since 2017

What about Grimm? Pretty nice bounce back versus the Tigers — a team that crushed him last time out.

Alexander Nevermind

Reply to cnote66

That was a different team – the 2012 Tigers.

Raymond Babbitt

Today’s Free Game — why no asterisks? And why has its listing been commingled with that of a separate game, a game that is decidedly not free?

It is only a foolish consistency that is a hobgoblin of something or other, many people do not know.

Here are some extra asterisks — almost a dozen — for you to use in case you have run out of your own asterisks: *******

Carson CistulliMember

Reply to Raymond Babbitt

I’ve borrowed some of your asterisks and made the relevant edits.

Thank you for bringing this grievous omission to my attention.

Krog

The fact that the Indians (of Cleveland!) have the highest team nerd score astounds me. Must be 7 points for Nick Swisher.

rrbass27

Holy cow! FAQR struck out Reynolds and Stubbs!
Shocking ;P

Hurtlockertwo

Reply to rrbass27

I though the same exact thing.

NatKingCole

So, now for my modest proposal ….
Move Zim to SECOND base, Danny to short, and Desi to third.
Danny has tremendous range, and can earn his keep at SS.
Desi has the arm for third base. Zim can still hit.
We drafted Harper, to play outfield, because his bat is epic,
and, of course, catchers can get hurt blocking the plate. Now, WE KNOW,
he’ll be safer behind the plate, than slamming into walls. Make him a catcher, fulltime.
Our pitchers are bad at holding runners on, but Harper’s arm alone will kill the opponents running game.
Trade Zuk or Ramos, (along with Storen) for a heavy hitting outfielder. Drew Storen may go on to have an excellent career, but it won’t be with the Nats. He needs a change of scenery. No hard feelings there.

OK, Peter Angelos is to blame for the Morse trade. It was never about Morse versus Span, or even Morse versus resigning LaRouche. It was Morse (and lots of money) versus an inexpensive bench player like Chad Tracy. Morse would have gotten plenty of at bats filling in for Werth, and LaRouche, and everyone else who has missed playing time (like Harper, sadly, as it turns out.) Span has done the job leading off, and patrolling center, and yesterday has been the only time his weak arm has cost us.
Angelos owes the Nats at least $40 million in tv revenue. That is likely why Morse was traded.

@AHume92

Farquhar made 3 appearances (2.0 IP) in 2011 with the Blue Jays.