NERD Game Scores: Astros Improbable Season Viewing Opp

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Houston at Cleveland | 18:10 ET
Keuchel (124.1 IP, 71 xFIP-) vs. Carrasco (97.1 IP, 70 xFIP-)
By the haphazardly derived methodology utilized by the author, this Houston-Cleveland encounter is the day’s most appealing by a considerable margin. With the exception of the White Sox game, for example — which features left-hander Chris Sale — it appears to offer all the day’s most noteworthy pitchers. And with the exception of Pittsburgh or Toronto, it offers probably the day’s most noteworthy teams, as well. And really, regardless of all that, it provides yet another opportunity to observe the Houston Astros, itself less a professional baseball club and more a loosely organized group of physically precocious neighbor children who’ve somehow been permitted to compete against actual, financially compensated adults.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

Other Brief Note
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features the same Houston and Cleveland clubs cited above, and can be accessed by means of this hyperlinked text.

Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete and very sortable table for all of today’s games. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and also the rest of the internet. Note that the calculations both for team and game NERD scores have changed recently to better integrate playoff odds into same. Read more about those changes here, if you’re the sort of person accustomed to making poor life decisions.

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Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Ant’ny DeSclafani	CIN	4	4	4	4	3	WAS	Doug Fister	19:05
James Shields	SD	7	4	6	8	6	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	8	10	9	7	10	CLE	Carlos Carrasco	19:10
John Lackey	STL	4	5	6	7	6	CHN	Jon Lester	20:05
Matt Wisler	ATL	3	2	3	3	4	MIL	Kyle Lohse	20:10
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	5	6	5	3	4	MIN	Phil Hughes	20:10
Alex Colome	TB	3	4	5	7	4	KC	Edinson Volquez	20:10
Mark Buehrle	TOR	5	9	6	1	10	CHA	Chris Sale	20:10
Alfredo Simon	DET	3	5	4	4	5	SEA	Hisashi Iwakuma	22:10
Sean O’Sullivan	PHI	0	2	3	5	6	LAN	Undecided	22:10
Jon Niese	NYN	4	4	5	5	6	SF	Chris Heston	22:15

* = Fewer than 10 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.