NERD Game Scores for Friday, September 19, 2014

September 19, 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
Detroit at Kansas City | 20:10 ET
Justin Verlander (190.2 IP, 112 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR) faces Jason Vargas (179.2 IP, 104 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR). In the event that one were interested in consuming a game between two clubs separated by almost nothing at the top of their respective division and with similar odds of winning that same division, then one would be — perhaps already is, without the aid of this brief paragraph — interested in consuming this particular game, so far as it fits the aforementioned criteria. Those with less interest in high-leverage baseball should consider directing their attention to almost every other game tonight.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

Lone, Brief Note
Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Milwaukee at Pittsburgh, starts at 7:05pm 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 changes here, if you’re the sort of person accustomed to making poor life decisions.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member

It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.

We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.

1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.

2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.

3. Dark mode and Classic mode!

4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.

5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.

6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)

7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.

8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.

9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.

10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!

We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Click Here To Become a Member

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Clayton Kershaw	LAN	10	4	5	4	5	CHN	Edwin Jackson	14:20
Allen Webster	BOS	3	3	4	4	7	BAL	Kevin Gausman	19:05
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	4	4	6	10	6	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Mark Buehrle	TOR	5	4	4	3	5	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	19:05
Jose Quintana	CHA	7	3	4	4	4	TB	Jer’my Hellickson	19:10
Doug Fister	WAS	6	4	4	4	5	MIA	Tom Koehler	19:10
Zack Wheeler	NYN	9	3	5	4	7	ATL	Julio Teheran	19:35
Chase Anderson	AZ	6	3	4	4	5	COL	Jordan Lyles	20:10
Trevor Bauer	CLE	6	4	5	4	10	MIN	Phil Hughes	20:10
Justin Verlander	DET	5	8	8	10	6	KC	Jason Vargas	20:10
Taijuan Walker*	SEA	7	7	5	4	3	HOU	Brad Peacock	20:10
David Holmberg*	CIN	4	3	5	5	8	STL	John Lackey	20:15
David Buchanan	PHI	5	3	7	10	8	OAK	Jon Lester	21:35
Lisalverto Bonilla*	TEX	4	3	4	4	3	LAA	Hector Santiago	22:05
Tim Hudson	SF	6	10	6	3	4	SD	Odris. Despaigne	22:10

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