NERD Game Scores for Saturday, June 04, 2016

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Toronto at Boston | 16:05 ET
Stroman (74.2 IP, 91 xFIP-) vs. Wright (69.2 IP, 100 xFIP-)
The rules of baseball dictate that, at any given time, a team is permitted to field only eight players plus a pitcher — and, in the case of the American League, an extra “designated” hitter. Given those particular limitations, one is surprised to see the most current iteration of this site’s WAR leaderboard for the last 30 days:

Batter WAR Leaderboard, Last 30 Days

	Name	Team	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	BsR	Off	Def	WAR
1	Ben Zobrist	Cubs	109	.418	.509	.648	211	0.6	15.1	1.8	2.1
2	Marcell Ozuna	Marlins	116	.406	.448	.689	204	-0.1	14.3	1.6	2.0
3	Mookie Betts	Red Sox	133	.322	.391	.669	179	1.0	13.5	1.2	2.0
4	Mike Trout	Angels	118	.319	.449	.532	173	2.3	12.5	1.6	1.9
5	David Ortiz	Red Sox	112	.371	.446	.845	233	-1.1	16.5	-2.6	1.8
6	Kyle Seager	Mariners	118	.400	.458	.629	196	-0.1	13.3	0.3	1.8
7	Ian Desmond	Rangers	118	.372	.390	.593	161	2.4	10.9	2.5	1.8
8	Xander Bogaerts	Red Sox	134	.363	.403	.548	156	-0.2	8.6	3.2	1.7
9	Corey Seager	Dodgers	125	.310	.352	.612	161	-0.3	8.8	3.4	1.7
10	Jackie Bradley Jr.	Red Sox	107	.374	.467	.714	212	0.3	14.3	-2.1	1.6

Four Boston players, is what one finds here — despite, as mentioned above, how a club is allowed to deploy only nine hitters in any particular game. Not only have the Red Sox deployed certain players with sufficient regularity to produce runs in volume, but four of those players have produced runs mostly better than anyone else. All four of those Boston players are likely to appear in this game — which the reader can watch or not watch at his or her discretion.

Readers’ Preferred Television Broadcast: Boston.

Two Other Brief Notes
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Milwaukee at Philadelphia, starts at 15:05 ET, and can be accessed by means of this hyperlinked text.

Broadcaster Rankings
Recently, the present author facilitated a crowdsourcing effort to reproduce the broadcaster rankings which appeared on this site roughly four years ago. The results from that effort — for television broadcasts, at least — are available 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 calculations both for team and game NERD scores feature adjustment for postseason odds that increases as season progresses. Read more about those adjustments here and here.

NERD Scores for June 04, 2016

Away		SP	TM	GM	TM	SP		Home	Time
Edwin Escobar*	AZ	4	6	5	7	4	CHN	Jason Hammel	14:20
Junior Guerra	MIL	6	5	5	2	6	PHI	Jeremy Hellickson	15:05
Jhoulys Chacin	LAA	7	2	4	5	2	PIT	Jeff Locke	16:05
Marcus Stroman	TOR	8	4	7	8	9	BOS	Steven Wright	16:05
Chris Sale	CHA	8	3	4	4	1	DET	Mike Pelfrey	16:10
Bartolo Colon	NYN	4	6	4	5	1	MIA	Justin Nicolino	16:10
Kendall Graveman	OAK	5	4	6	7	6	HOU	Collin McHugh	16:10
Matt Andriese	TB	5	7	5	6	4	MIN	Ervin Santana	16:10
Stephen Strasburg	WAS	10	7	6	4	4	CIN	Dan Straily	16:10
Ian Kennedy	KC	4	5	5	6	5	CLE	Josh Tomlin	19:15
Ivan Nova	NYA	6	4	5	6	3	BAL	Tyler Wilson	19:15
Jeff Samardzija	SF	7	4	6	6	7	STL	Michael Wacha	19:15
Nate Karns	SEA	6	7	5	5	4	TEX	Martin Perez	21:05
Bud Norris	ATL	1	1	4	5	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	22:10
Chad Bettis	COL	5	4	4	6	2	SD	Andrew Cashner	22:10

SP denotes pitcher NERD score.
TM denotes team score.
GM denotes overall game score.
Highlighted portion denotes game of the day.

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