NERD Game Scores for Friday, July 18, 2014

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 Miami | 19:10 ET
Madison Bumgarner (127.0 IP, 82 xFIP-, 2.1 WAR) faces Nathan Eovaldi (119.2 IP, 106 xFIP-, 2.0 WAR). The pleasures of the former are nearly, if not entirely, conspicuous. Regarding the latter, however, one finds that he currently sits third among 94 qualified pitchers by average fastball velocity (95.7 mph) while also throwing strikes at a rate (66.4%) about a standard deviation better than league average, as well. By way of reference, here are some figures produced by starters who’ve recorded both fastball velocities and strike rates at least a standard deviation better than the mean: 90 xFIP-, 101 ERA-. And among those who lack that distinction: 106 xFIP-, 110 ERA-. All things being equal, not surprisingly, throwing hard strikes is of some benefit to the end of run prevention.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

Two Brief Notes
Regarding Curt Casali, Who That Person Is and Why
With Ryan Hanigan having been sent to the disabled list, Tampa Bay have promoted catcher Curt Casali to the major-league club. The 25-year-old is of some interest owing to a minor-league record which features a number of season with walk-to-strikeout ratios above 1.0.

Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Tampa Bay at Minnesota, starts at 8:10 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.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Mike Leake	CIN	6	3	4	2	2	NYA	David Phelps	19:05
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	1	9	4	5	6	PIT	Francisco Liriano	19:05
Kyle Lohse	MIL	5	6	7	7	10	WAS	St. Strasburg	19:05
Yu Darvish	TEX	7	4	7	5	9	TOR	R.A. Dickey	19:07
Trevor Bauer	CLE	6	7	6	4	5	DET	Anibal Sanchez	19:08
James Shields	KC	6	5	4	2	3	BOS	Clay Buchholz	19:10
M. Bumgarner	SF	9	6	8	7	7	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
A.J. Burnett	PHI	2	2	5	7	8	ATL	Ervin Santana	19:35
Scott Feldman	HOU	1	8	4	2	6	CHA	Jose Quintana	20:10
Alex Cobb	TB	7	6	5	4	3	MIN	Kyle Gibson	20:10
Dan Haren	LAN	6	4	5	3	4	STL	Lance Lynn	20:15
Edwin Jackson	CHN	4	4	5	5	5	AZ	Trevor Cahill*	21:40
Chris Tillman	BAL	1	6	5	7	8	OAK	Jeff Samardzija	22:05
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	8	5	6	7	3	LAA	Jered Weaver	22:05
Bartolo Colon	NYN	5	3	5	4	7	SD	Ian Kennedy	22:10

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