Daily Notes, With Video of Five Notable Screwballs
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Video: Five Notable Screwballs
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Video: Five Notable Screwballs
Regarding What Happened Yesterday
Yesterday, both White Sox left-hander Hector Santiago and Rangers right-hander Yoshinori Tateyama — i.e. the only two pitchers to’ve thrown a screwball in the majors this season — threw for their respective teams. (See the latter’s version of the pitch via the power of animated GIFs.)
Regarding What’s Happening Now
What’s happening now is the author is presenting five videos that concern the screwball expressly.
Video: Carl Hubbell
Here’s the very accomplished Carl Hubbell throwing what appears to be his very famous screwball:
Video: Fernando Valenzuela
Here’s Fernando Valenzuela inducing a a swinging strike from Reggie Jackson on what appears to be his (i.e. Valenzuela’s) very famous and effective screwball:
Video: Wiffle Screwball
Here are some wiffle screwballs, courtesy resident of the internet WiffleBoy28:
Video: Woody Woodpecker
This is an animated bird throwing a screwball, ca. 1943:
Video: It Happened One Night
Here’s a characteristic exchange from famous screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934), directed by Frank Capra:
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Seattle at Los Angeles AL | 15:35 ET
After Wednesday night’s walk-off victory (box), the Angels remain two games behind Oakland for the American League’s second wild-card spot.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles Television, Maybe.
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 4.0.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wily Peralta | MIL | 8 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 8 | CIN | Mat Latos | 12:35 |
| Luis Mendoza | KC | 3 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 | DET | Doug Fister | 13:05 |
| Kevin Correia | PIT | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 10 | NYN | R.A. Dickey | 13:10 |
| Travis Blackley | OAK | 4 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 5 | TEX | Matt Harrison | 14:05 |
| Chris Volstad | CHN | 2 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 1 | COL | Jhoulys Chacin | 15:10 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | SEA | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 5 | LAA | Dan Haren | 15:35 |
| Patrick Corbin | AZ | 7 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 | SF | Barry Zito | 15:45 |
| Gio Gonzalez | WAS | 8 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 6 | PHI | Tyler Cloyd | 19:05 |
| Ivan Nova | NYA | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 6 | TOR | Brandon Morrow | 19:07 |
| Jacob Turner | MIA | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | ATL | Tommy Hanson | 19:10 |
| James Shields | TB | 9 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 6 | CHA | Jake Peavy | 20:10 |
| Chris Capuano | LAN | 6 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 8 | SD | Casey Kelly | 22:05 |
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Somewhere across the pacific rim a youth is working to perfect what will soon be known a Philips Head Screwball.