NERD Game Scores for Tuesday, July 19, 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
New York NL at Chicago NL | 19:05 ET
Syndergaard (105.2 IP, 59 xFIP-) vs. Arrieta (114.1 IP, 82 xFIP-)
Typically, the author would abuse his role as custodian of this daily exercise and assign a sufficiently high discretionary NERD score to a top pitching prospect making his debut — such as Washington’s Reynaldo Lopez is expected to make tonight — so as to render the corresponding game score the day’s highest. Why I haven’t today is on account of two reasons. One, because the success that Lopez experienced at the Double-A level this year didn’t translate to his first (and only) couple starts at Triple-A. Whatever Lopez’s physical virtues, his inability to record significantly more strikeouts than walks in the International League doesn’t bode particularly well for his major-league debut tonight. And for two, because the prospect of a Syndergaard-Arrieta rencontre is a compelling one, for reasons that likely needn’t be catalogued for the benefit of one who’s somehow made his or her way to the end of a paragraph riddled with obscurities.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

Two Other Brief Notes
A Brief Note About the Aforementioned Reynaldo Lopez
Signed originally by Washington out of the Dominican for just $17,000, the right-handed Lopez has surpassed whatever expectations a reasonable person could have placed on him. Just six-feet tall, Lopez throws his fastball in the mid-90s — roughly the same as Lucas Giolito despite the latter’s possession of roughly half a foot of extra leverage. While Lopez hasn’t fared particularly well by Chris Mitchell’s KATOH projection system previously, that has changed a bit this year given the former’s excellent record at Double-A this season, where he recorded strikeout and walk rates of 30.4% and 7.6%, respectively, over 14 starts and 76.1 innings.

Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Los Angeles at Washington, starts at 19:05 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 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.