NERD Game Scores for Tuesday, May 20, 2014

May 20, 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
New York AL at Chicago NL | 19:10 ET
Masahiro Tanaka (58.0 IP, 58 xFIP-, 1.6 WAR) faces Jason Hammel (53.0 IP, 96 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR). The former has produced the second-best park-adjusted xFIP among all qualified starters, and the absolute best park-adjusted xFIP among all qualified starters who haven’t also recently destroyed both their UCLs and, while so doing, the illusions of many who believed in the permanence of beauty.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago NL Television.

Three Brief Notes
Regarding Anthony DeSclafani, His Recent Debut
Making his major-league debut last week in place of the injured Jose Fernandez, Miami right-hander Anthony DeSclafani recorded a single-game 2.34 xFIP at the Los Angeles Dodgers (box). He starts today against Philadelphia.

Regarding Drew Pomeranz, His Work as a Starter
In his two starts this season, which also account for both of his last two appearances, left-hander Drew Pomeranz has produced a 13:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 10.0 innings and a 1.60 xFIP.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member

It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.

We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.

1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.

2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.

3. Dark mode and Classic mode!

4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.

5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.

6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)

7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.

8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.

9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.

10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!

We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Click Here To Become a Member

Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Baltimore at Pittsburgh, starts at 7:05pm 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.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Mig. Gonzalez	BAL	2	3	5	7	7	PIT	Francisco Liriano	19:05
Johnny Cueto	CIN	9	3	7	5	6	WAS	Doug Fister*	19:05
Justin Verlander	DET	3	5	5	5	6	CLE	Trevor Bauer*	19:05
Josh Beckett	LAN	4	6	5	2	6	NYN	Rafael Montero*	19:10
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	2	5	4	6	5	ATL	Julio Teheran	19:10
D. Pomeranz*	OAK	8	6	7	6	6	TB	Jake Odorizzi	19:10
A.J. Burnett	PHI	2	2	5	8	9	MIA	Ant’ny DeSclafani*	19:10
J.A. Happ*	TOR	3	6	3	2	2	BOS	Felix Doubront	19:10
Masahiro Tanaka	NYA	10	6	7	5	5	CHN	Jason Hammel	20:05
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	7	5	5	2	5	TEX	Colby Lewis	20:05
Andre Rienzo	CHA	1	2	5	3	10	KC	Yordano Ventura	20:10
Bronson Arroyo	AZ	4	6	5	2	6	STL	Adam Wainwright	20:15
M. Bumgarner	SF	7	6	5	9	2	COL	Franklin Morales	20:40
Scott Feldman	HOU	1	8	5	9	6	LAA	Tyler Skaggs	22:05
Kevin Correia	MIN		3	4	5	8	SD	Ian Kennedy	22:10

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