NERD Game Scores for Wednesday, May 25, 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 Washington | 13:05 ET
Matz (41.2 IP, 71 xFIP-) vs. Roark (56.0 IP, 91 xFIP-)
Among Mets starters, the one who’s produced the best season thus far is (unsurprisingly) right-hander Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard has recorded the highest strikeout rate on the club and lowest walk rate and highest ground-ball rate and top WAR figure and also remains the youngest, somehow. His virtues are manifold and impressive, one concludes. Among Mets starters who don’t invite very obvious comparisons to Norse deities, however, Steven Matz is the best — and all the distinctions which formerly applied to Syndergaard (highest strikeout rate, lowest walk rate, etc.) apply instead to him. Because he invites many fewer comparisons to deities, is why. Unless there’s a god somewhere named Steve the Approachable-Looking Fellow. In which case, Steven Matz probably bears a pretty close resemblance.

Three Other Brief Notes
A Brief Editorial Moment
While the unnecessarily complex algorithm which informs NERD doesn’t rate Milwaukee’s Junior Guerra particularly well at the moment, the author nevertheless recommends investing some amount of psychic funds in that same right-handed pitcher. Guerra, who was a fixture for some time among the Fringe Five, was excellent in his last game, striking out 11 of 28 Cubs batters he faced on the strength of an above-average fastball and even better splitter and he literally pitched in the Italian league for a season.

Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features San Diego at San Francisco, starts at 15:45 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 — for television broadcasts, at least — are available 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.

NERD Scores for May 25, 2016

Away		SP	TM	GM	TM	SP		Home	Time
Steven Matz	NYN	10	7	7	6	5	WAS	Tanner Roark	13:05
Dillon Gee	KC	6	4	6	6	6	MIN	Tyler Duffey	13:10
Aaron Nola	PHI	10	3	5	4	3	DET	Anibal Sanchez	13:10
Jake Arrieta	CHN	7	8	7	7	6	STL	Carlos Martinez	13:45
Hector Santiago	LAA	3	2	4	4	5	TEX	Colby Lewis	14:05
Corey Kluber	CLE	8	6	6	4	6	CHA	Jose Quintana	14:10
James Shields	SD	4	5	4	5	3	SF	Jake Peavy	15:45
Rubby de la Rosa	AZ	6	7	5	5	2	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Marco Estrada	TOR	5	4	5	4	6	NYA	Ivan Nova	19:05
Chad Bettis	COL	6	3	7	8	9	BOS	Steven Wright	19:10
Justin Nicolino	MIA	0	5	3	8	3	TB	Matt Andriese	19:10
Junior Guerra	MIL	6	5	6	1	9	ATL	Mike Foltynewicz	19:10
Tyler Wilson	BAL	2	6	4	6	5	HOU	Collin McHugh	20:10
Dan Straily	CIN	3	3	4	5	4	LAN	Scott Kazmir	22:10
Zach Neal*	OAK	4	4	4	6	3	SEA	Hisashi Iwakuma	22:15

SP denotes pitcher NERD score.
TM denotes team score.
GM denotes overall game score.
Highlighted portion denotes game of the day.

* = Fewer than 10 IP, NERD at discretion of clueless author.