NERD Game Scores for Saturday, August 23, 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
Pittsburgh at Milwaukee | 19:10 ET
Edinson Volquez (146.0 IP, 115 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR) faces Wily Peralta (157.0 IP, 98 xFIP-, 1.0 WAR). While at least two of the clubs involved would disagree, the best sort of thing that can happen at the moment in the NL Central — to the end of Maximum Pleasure, that is — is what happened last night, on which night Pittsburgh defeated Milwaukee while St. Louis also lost.

Regard, the effect on the odds of qualifying for the divisional series for each of the three relevant clubs before and after Friday’s games (in order of current place in division):

After entering the day 55 points behind the Cardinals, the Pirates exited it (i.e. that same day) trailing by only about 45 points.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee Radio.

One Brief Note
Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Houston at Cleveland, 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.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Scott Carroll	CHA	1	2	2	3	3	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	13:05
Jeremy Hellickson	TB	2	4	4	4	4	TOR	Mark Buehrle	13:07
Buck Farmer*	DET	7	10	6	3	5	MIN	Yohan Pino	13:10
Justin Verlander	DET	3	10	5	3	3	MIN	Trevor May*	20:10
Chris Young	SEA	1	7	4	3	2	BOS	Brand’n Workman	13:35
Bud Norris	BAL	3	4	4	4	6	CHN	Kyle Hendricks	14:20
Tim Lincecum	SF	6	9	7	4	9	WAS	Jor. Zimmermann	16:05
Collin McHugh	HOU	7	4	5	4	8	CLE	Danny Salazar	19:05
Shelby Miller	STL	3	8	5	3	5	PHI	David Buchanan	19:05
Ervin Santana	ATL	8	7	5	2	6	CIN	Mike Leake	19:10
Edinson Volquez	PIT	2	7	7	10	7	MIL	Wily Peralta	19:10
Jeremy Guthrie	KC	3	9	5	3	2	TEX	Nick Tepesch	20:05
Tom Koehler	MIA	3	4	4	4	4	COL	Jordan Lyles	20:10
Andrew Cashner	SD	8	3	4	3	5	AZ	Vidal Nuno	20:10
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	7	7	8	7	OAK	Jon Lester	21:05
Jacob deGrom	NYN	8	2	5	4	8	LAN	Zack Greinke	21:10

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