NERD Game Scores for Saturday, June 20, 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
Pittsburgh at Washington | 16:05 ET
Liriano (82.2 IP, 68 xFIP-) vs. Scherzer (93.1 IP, 73 xFIP-)
In the Book of Luke, Jesus of Nazareth relates a parable about a traveler who’s beaten and robbed but then ultimately cared for by a passerby. It’s from this passage that we derive the term Good Samaritan, after the ethnicity of that compassionate citizen. What one extracts from the parable is a working definition of the word neighbor (or plésion, it seems, in the Greek). What else one learns, however, is that two other men had seen the beaten traveler and ignored him entirely. Asshole (or something like malakas in the Greek, it seems), is the word most immediately applicable their particular behavoir.

How’s this relevant to this afternoon’s encounter between the Pirates and Nationals? This is how: instead merely of noting that Francisco Liriano and Max Scherzer have both recorded strikeout rates among the top five by that measure in all the major leagues — instead merely of nothing that and perhaps inserting a link such as this one — what that same author has done, in a fit of neighborly love, is to create an illustrative table for the reader’s benefit and publish it here:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

A Single, Brief Note
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Baltimore at Toronto, starts at 13:07 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
Kevin Gausman*	BAL	7	6	6	9	4	TOR	Mark Buehrle	13:07
Jon Lester	CHN	6	7	6	2	7	MIN	Trevor May	14:10
Nick Martinez	TEX	2	4	3	0	7	CHA	Carlos Rodon	14:10
Jered Weaver	LAA	2	6	4	4	4	OAK	Jesse Hahn	16:05
Franc.o Liriano	PIT	10	7	8	6	10	WAS	Max Scherzer	16:05
Kyle Lohse	MIL	4	2	4	3	6	COL	Chad Bettis	16:10
John Lackey	STL	4	5	3	1	2	PHI	Aaron Harang	19:05
Rick Porcello	BOS	5	4	5	8	4	KC	Edinson Volquez	19:10
Tom Koehler	MIA	2	5	4	5	4	CIN	Ant’ny DeSclafani	19:10
N. Syndergaard	NYN	10	5	5	2	4	ATL	Williams Perez	19:10
Erasmo Ramirez	TB	5	5	7	8	10	CLE	Corey Kluber	19:10
Alfredo Simon	DET	3	4	5	8	7	NYA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:15
Tim Hudson	SF	4	4	5	6	7	LAN	Carlos Frias	19:15
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	7	10	7	4	8	SEA	Taijuan Walker	22:10
Tyson Ross	SD	8	3	5	5	5	AZ	Robbie Ray	22:10

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