NERD Game Scores for Thursday, August 28, 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.

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Most Highly Rated Game
Oakland at Los Angeles AL | 22:05 ET
Sonny Gray (171.0 IP, 92 xFIP-, 2.8 WAR) faces C.J. Wilson (141.2 IP, 104 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR). Oakland and Anaheim enter this game featuring roughly equal odds of winning the AL West. The latter club currently holds a one-game lead over the former, but the A’s possess a better projected rest-of-season winning percentage than the Angels (.568 vs .534). It’s definitely not the case that anything could happen. Hair made of lead won’t fall from a star, for example, and then become the comet which destroys you, like happens in this one poem by Benjamin Peret. With regard to the future of this particular division, however, the outcome is uncertain.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland Radio.

Two Brief Notes
Debut Alert: Boston’s Edwin Escobar
Left-hander Edwin Escobar, acquired by Boston from San Francisco in the trade that sent Jake Peavy to the Giants, was both promoted by the Red Sox yesterday and then also made his major-league debut with that same club. The result: 1.0 IP, 3 TBF, 0 K, 0 BB. And his line at Triple-A before that: 138.1 IP, 18.7% K, 7.3% BB.

Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Minnesota at Kansas City, starts at 8:10pm 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
Jake Arrieta CHN 8 4 4 2 6 CIN Dylan Axelrod* 12:35
Hiroki Kuroda NYA 3 4 6 10 5 DET Kyle Lobstein* 13:08
Jordan Lyles COL 4 4 5 8 4 SF Yusmeiro Petit 15:45
Je’my Hellickson TB 3 4 4 5 3 BAL Bud Norris 19:05
Mike Minor ATL 5 6 5 3 5 NYN Jon Niese 19:10
Carlos Carrasco CLE 9 4 4 2 2 CHA John Danks 20:10
Tommy Milone MIN 2 3 5 9 3 KC Jeremy Guthrie 20:10
Nick Tepesch TEX 2 3 4 4 7 HOU Collin McHugh 20:10
Sonny Gray OAK 6 8 6 7 3 LAA C.J. Wilson 22:05

To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 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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The Josh Donaldson
9 years ago

Hey Carson, do you work the night shift at MLB.com?

http://imgur.com/2iFbara

The use of “The” when celebrating the efforts of one Josh Donaldson echoed your literary excellence.