NERD Game Scores for Friday, August 21, 2015

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
San Francisco at Pittsburgh | 19:05 ET
Bumgarner (163.1 IP, 77 xFIP-) vs. Locke (129.1 IP, 104 xFIP-)
Writing about the implications of this series yesterday, the present author noted that, among all major-league clubs, the two considered here featured divisional-series playoff odds closest to 50% — which is to say, furthest from certainty. Not only does that remain the case today, but what else one finds is that, according to the numbers, this game itself is basically an exercise in uncertainty. Regard, by way of illustration, a lightly edited excerpt from today’s live scoreboard:

Afflicted by randomness, is how the Giants and Pirates currently find themselves. Afflicted by randomness, one notes, is also how any reasonably observant person describes his experience of the world. To suggest, then, that tonight’s contest represents a sort of morality play for existential angst — this would be accurate. Accurate but also overwrought. Overwrought, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

Another Brief Note
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features New York NL at Colorado, starts at 20:40 ET, 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 adjustments here and here.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Shelby Miller	ATL	7	2	6	8	7	CHN	Kyle Hendricks	16:05
Carlos Carrasco	CLE	10	4	7	8	7	NYA	Masahiro Tanaka	19:05
Jimmy Nelson	MIL	6	3	6	8	6	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Tommy Milone	MIN	3	2	5	8	5	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
M. Bumgarner	SF	9	10	9	9	5	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Colby Lewis	TEX	4	5	4	3	4	DET	Justin Verlander	19:08
Rub. de la Rosa	AZ	7	4	4	3	0	CIN	David Holmberg	19:10
Johnny Cueto	KC	7	3	4	3	6	BOS	Henry Owens	19:10
Jerad Eickhoff*	PHI	7	2	4	4	6	MIA	Kendry Flores*	19:10
Brett Anderson	LAN	6	10	7	8	3	HOU	Mike Fiers	20:10
Bartolo Colon	NYN	6	7	6	3	8	COL	Jonathan Gray	20:40
Drew Smyly	TB	10	3	5	3	6	OAK	Chris Bassitt	22:05
David Price	TOR	7	9	7	8	3	LAA	Hector Santiago	22:05
Chris Sale	CHA	10	2	5	3	8	SEA	Felix Hernandez	22:10
John Lackey	STL	5	4	4	3	7	SD	Andrew Cashner	22:10

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