NERD Game Scores for Tuesday, August 5, 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.

Most Highly Rated Game
San Francisco at Milwaukee | 20:10 ET
Tim Lincecum (128.1 IP, 98 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Jimmy Nelson (23.0 IP, 111 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR). No team’s postseason future is less clear at the moment than the Giants’, which club enters Tuesday with 51.9% odds of making the divisional series. Nor are the Brewers very different in this regard: despite a 1.0- and 1.5-game lead over St. Louis and Pittsburgh, respectively, in the NL Central, the Milwaukees currently feature just 37.4% odds of reaching the divisional series.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Basically All of Them.

Three Brief Notes
Hot Debut of Great Heat: Chicago’s Javier Baez
The Cubs, on Monday, announced the promotion of very powerful infield prospect Javier Baez to the majors, where he’s likely to occupy the second-base spot vacated by the trade of Emilio Bonifacio to Atlanta. Steamer projects Baez to slash .239/.287/.427 and produce a 0.5 WAR in a bit less than 200 plate appearances.

Other, More Different Types of Debut: David Price and Drew Smyly
Left-handed David Price and other left-handed Drew Smyly, traded for each other (among other pieces) at the July 31st deadline, are scheduled to make their debuts for Detroit and Tampa Bay, respectively, today.

Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Texas at the Chicago Americans, 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 that’s interesting for some reason.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Johnny Cueto	CIN	8	3	6	6	8	CLE	Josh Tomlin	19:05
David Price	DET	10	4	6	5	4	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	19:05
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	8	4	4	2	2	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:05
Brad Hand	MIA	3	4	5	9	4	PIT	Charlie Morton	19:05
Zack Wheeler	NYN	8	2	5	5	6	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Bud Norris	BAL	3	7	6	7	4	TOR	Mark Buehrle	19:07
Jesse Hahn	SD	7	3	5	3	9	MIN	Phil Hughes	20:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	6	10	8	9	5	MIL	Jimmy Nelson	20:10
Colby Lewis	TEX	3	3	3	3	2	CHA	John Danks	20:10
Rubby de la Rosa	BOS	6	3	5	8	4	STL	Lance Lynn	20:15
Travis Wood	CHN	2	4	4	4	6	COL	Brett Anderson	20:40
Danny Duffy	KC	3	4	4	3	8	AZ	Wade Miley	21:40
Drew Smyly	TB	5	5	6	7	7	OAK	Jason Hammel	22:05
Alex Wood	ATL	8	7	7	4	10	SEA	Felix Hernandez	22:10
Hector Santiago	LAA	2	7	6	5	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	22:10

To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.