NERD Game Scores for Wednesday, May 28, 2014

May 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.

***

Most Highly Rated Game
Cincinnati at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Homer Bailey (57.1 IP, 96 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR) faces Clayton Kershaw (28.1 IP, 53 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR). The latter, after recording a single-game 5.39 xFIP and conceding seven runs over 1.2 innings in Arizona (box), much more resembled his true self this last Friday in Philadelphia, during which start he produced a 9:3 strikeout-to-ratio over 6.0 decidedly scoreless innings (other box).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

Three Brief Notes
Regarding a Question from the Unwashed Readership
In yesterday’s edition of this same thing, reader Underwood4000 inquired as to how the author, in such cases where multiple games feature that given day’s highest rating, how the author endeavors to select one of them for further consideration (such as in the case of the Reds-Dodgers context above). The answer is thus: in fact, on the relevant Master Spreadsheet, NERD game scores are rendered to the second decimal point. Today, for example, the Cincinnati-Los Angeles game features a score of 7.38, while Atlanta-Boston and Anaheim-Seattle — both rounded to a score of 7 — feature scores of 6.75 and 6.50, respectively.

Regarding the Author, His Feelings After Having Written the Above
That he has indulged himself.

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 Detroit at Oakland, starts at 10:05pm 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
Charlie Morton	PIT	3	6	4	3	5	NYN	Bartolo Colon	13:10
Jarred Cosart	HOU	3	7	3	3	1	KC	Danny Duffy	14:10
Edwin Jackson	CHN	5	5	6	6	6	SF	Tim Lincecum	15:45
Jordan Lyles	COL	5	8	4	2	3	PHI	Rob. Hernandez	19:05
Hen’son Alvarez	MIA	6	9	6	5	6	WAS	Blake Treinen*	19:05
Chris Archer	TB	6	6	6	7	5	TOR	Liam Hendriks*	19:07
Gavin Floyd	ATL	8	7	7	2	7	BOS	John Lackey	19:10
Bud Norris	BAL	3	4	3	5	2	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	20:10
T.J. House*	CLE	4	6	4	3	3	CHA	Hector Noesi	20:10
Joe Saunders*	TEX	4	3	3	4	1	MIN	Kyle Gibson	20:10
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	5	5	4	3	3	STL	Shelby Miller	20:15
Tim Stauffer*	SD	6	5	6	5	7	AZ	Chase Anderson*	21:40
Anibal Sanchez	DET	5	4	5	6	5	OAK	Scott Kazmir	22:05
Homer Bailey	CIN	7	3	7	5	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	22:10
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	9	7	4	9	SEA	Felix Hernandez	22:10

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