Daily Notes: Very Emergent Rick Porcello to Start Today
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Featured Game: Detroit at Baltimore, 13:35pm ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Featured Game: Detroit at Baltimore, 13:35pm ET
Regarding This Game, Who’s Starting It for Detroit
Starting this game for Detroit, in terms of a pitcher, is right-hander Rick Porcello.
Regarding Rick Porcello, What Notable About Him
What’s notable about Rick Porcello, of course, is how — over just the last month, really — how he’s transformed himself from a promising and still mostly young pitcher with a good sinker into very literally one of the league’s best starters.
Rick Porcello: April vs. May
Here’s a table including an assortment of metrics which reveal Porcello’s improvement in May relative to April (April’s line more closely resembling his previously established levels):
| Month | G | IP | TBF | K% | BB% | GB% | BABIP | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr | 5 | 19.1 | 88 | 9.1% | 5.7% | 57.3% | .347 | 210 | 121 | 110 | 0.0 |
| May | 5 | 31.2 | 123 | 26.0% | 4.1% | 54.2% | .284 | 74 | 79 | 58 | 0.7 |
Rick Porcello: His Leaderboard Companions
By way of illustrating Porcello’s monthly performances relative to other pitchers in the league, here’s the portion which features Porcello from the April leaderboard for park-adjusted xFIP*:
| Rank | Name | Team | G | IP | TBF | K% | BB% | GB% | xFIP- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 77 | C.J. Wilson | Angels | 5 | 29.1 | 133 | 20.3% | 12.8% | 51.7% | 109 |
| 78 | Mark Buehrle | Blue Jays | 5 | 28.1 | 130 | 14.6% | 4.6% | 39.2% | 110 |
| 79 | Rick Porcello | Tigers | 5 | 19.1 | 88 | 9.1% | 5.7% | 57.3% | 110 |
| 80 | Wily Peralta | Brewers | 5 | 28.2 | 126 | 11.9% | 9.5% | 59.4% | 111 |
| 81 | Bronson Arroyo | Reds | 6 | 41.0 | 164 | 11.0% | 3.1% | 43.2% | 111 |
*Among qualified starters — had Porcello thrown enough innings to qualify, even.
And now here’s the same thing, except for the May leaderboard:
| Rank | Name | Team | G | IP | TBF | K% | BB% | GB% | xFIP- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anibal Sanchez | Tigers | 6 | 37.1 | 155 | 31.0% | 5.8% | 44.6% | 56 |
| 2 | Felix Hernandez | Mariners | 6 | 40.2 | 161 | 26.7% | 5.6% | 56.9% | 57 |
| 3 | Rick Porcello | Tigers | 5 | 31.2 | 123 | 26.0% | 4.1% | 54.2% | 58 |
| 4 | Alex Cobb | Rays | 5 | 32.1 | 130 | 26.9% | 5.4% | 64.4% | 59 |
| 5 | Yu Darvish | Rangers | 5 | 35.2 | 141 | 33.3% | 6.4% | 42.7% | 62 |
More Reading on Porcello
Last Monday, the present author reviewed Porcello’s most recent start. That same day, Jeff Sullivan considered what we know for sure is different about Porcello’s approach.
Finally, Regarding This Game
It ought to be noted, regarding this game, that Porcello is opposed by very promising Baltimore right-hander Kevin Gausman. Gausman’s first couple of starts have not been brilliant (9.0 IP, 126 xFIP-, -0.3 WAR), but he continues to sit at 96 mph and throw an impressive changeup or split-change or split-fingered fastball or forkball.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our crowdsourcing project from the 2011-2012 offseason, FanGraphs readers prefer Baltimore or Detroit Radio (link).
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Kansas City at Texas | 15:05 ET
Ervin Santana (70.1 IP, 87 xFIP-, 0.8 WAR) faces Yu Darvish (74.1 IP, 59 xFIP-, 2.2 WAR). The latter struck out 14 in his most recent start, during the course of which he (i.e. Darvish) threw this pitch, just because he felt like it, probably:
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 5.8.
Note: the following table is entirely sortable.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jer. Hellickson | TB | 8 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 4 | CLE | Zach McAllister | 13:05 |
| Matt Harvey | NYN | 10 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 4 | MIA | Kevin Slowey | 13:10 |
| Mat Latos | CIN | 7 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 3 | PIT | Jeanmar Gomez | 13:35 |
| Rick Porcello | DET | 9 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | BAL | Kevin Gausman* | 13:35 |
| Mike Fiers* | MIL | 4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 7 | PHI | Cliff Lee | 13:35 |
| Nate Karns* | WAS | 7 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 4 | ATL | Paul Maholm | 13:35 |
| Jer. Bonderman* | SEA | 7 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | MIN | Scott Diamond | 14:10 |
| Chad Gaudin* | SF | 5 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 8 | STL | Tyler Lyons* | 14:15 |
| Patrick Corbin | AZ | 7 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | CHN | Edwin Jackson | 14:20 |
| Ervin Santana | KC | 7 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 10 | TEX | Yu Darvish | 15:05 |
| Jordan Lyles | HOU | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | LAA | C.J. Wilson | 15:35 |
| Chris Sale | CHA | 9 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 3 | OAK | Jarrod Parker | 16:05 |
| Hyun-Jin Ryu | LAN | 7 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 2 | COL | Jorge de la Rosa | 16:10 |
| Clay Buchholz | BOS | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | NYA | Hiroki Kuroda | 20:00 |
| Undecided | TOR | 5 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 1 | SD | Ed. Volquez | 22:10 |
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
UNDECIDED has a NERD of 6?
It should be higher. The suspense is killing me.