NERD Game Scores for Sunday, July 10, 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
Washington at New York NL | 13:10 ET
Gonzalez (97.2 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Matz (89.0 IP, 80 xFIP-)
If it feels as though the Nationals and Mets have already played 1,000 games this season, then that’s strange, because they’ve actually played each other only 12 times so far — a figure which is almost 1,000 fewer than 1,000. If it really does feel that way to you, though, it’s possible that you experience time in a markedly different manner than other humans — such as one of Oliver Sacks’ patients, Hester, whom he discusses in an essay called Speed in a 2004 issue of the New Yorker.

From that piece:

Hester, too, seemed unaware of the degree to which her personal time diverged from clock time. I once asked my students to play ball with her, and they found it impossible to catch her lightning-quick throws. Hester returned the ball so rapidly that their hands, still outstretched from the throw, might be hit smartly by the returning ball. “You see how quick she is,” I said. “Don’t underestimate her — you’d better be ready.” But they could not be ready, since their best reaction times approached a seventh of a second, whereas Hester’s was scarcely more than a tenth of a second.

Fascinating or terrible? This is a question no one has to answer.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

Two Other Brief Notes
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Detroit at Toronto, starts at 13:07 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 are published here in one easily digestible post.

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.