NERD Game Scores for Monday, August 31, 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
Cleveland at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Salazar (144.1 IP, 82 xFIP-) vs. Price (182.1 IP, 84 xFIP-)
If one accepts the principle that the most compelling sort of baseball games — especially in late August or early September — are those which offer the greatest implications for the postseason, then one is likely to find him- or herself drawn either to the Blue Jays or Yankees for the time being, which clubs are separated by merely 1.5 games in the AL East. If one’s choices are dictated more strongly by another sort of principle, however, then it’s impossible to say which contest, if any, he or she might prefer. This is, of course, the damning reality facing any attempt to rate games based on their aesthetic appeal. “So why even bother attempting it?” one might ask. To which question I reply: “The awful inertia of any human endeavor.”

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

Two Brief Notes
Largely Trivial Nathan Eovaldi Fastball-Splitter Ratio Update
As noted in yesterday’s edition of this same dumb thing, Yankees right-hander Nathan Eovaldi has begun throwing a splitter with considerable frequency, actually recording a fastball:spliter ratio of lower than 1.0 (42 fastballs vs. 49 splitters) last Monday against Houston. Yesterday in Atlanta, Eovaldi’s pitch mix was slightly more traditional: according to the PITCHf/x data, he seems to have recorded 55 fastballs versus only 24 splitters.

Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Washington at St. Louis, starts at 20;15 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
Chris Archer	TB	10	4	5	4	5	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
Danny Salazar	CLE	10	5	8	10	7	TOR	David Price	19:07
Chris Narveson*	MIA	4	4	4	3	7	ATL	Mike Foltynewicz	19:10
Ivan Nova	NYA	1	10	6	4	7	BOS	Ed. Rodriguez	19:10
Jerad Eickhoff	PHI	7	3	5	5	6	NYN	Bartolo Colon	19:10
Mi. Lorenzen	CIN	3	4	5	5	8	CHN	Kyle Hendricks	20:05
Vidal Nuno	SEA	6	4	7	8	9	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	20:10
Gio Gonzalez	WAS	6	5	6	6	5	STL	John Lackey	20:15
Robbie Ray	AZ	5	5	5	4	5	COL	Chad Bettis	20:40
Hector Santiago	LAA	3	5	4	4	4	OAK	Felix Doubront	22:05
Jake Peavy	SF	2	6	5	6	6	LAN	Brett Anderson	22:10
Colby Lewis	TEX	3	8	6	4	8	SD	Tyson Ross	22:10

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