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.

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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:

# Name Team IP K%
1 Chris Sale White Sox 88.2 34.3%
2 Clayton Kershaw Dodgers 93.0 32.8%
3 Chris Archer Rays 95.0 31.1%
4 Max Scherzer Nationals 93.1 30.9%
5 Francisco Liriano Pirates 82.2 30.5%

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.

NERD Image 4

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.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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Fickle Pickle
8 years ago

Syndergaard is a 9, oh no one start… a 5… oh wait, a 7… oh no, a 10!

I’d hate to be Cistulli’s wife.