NERD Game Scores: Strasburg-Kershaw Pitching Spectacular

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
Washington at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Strasburg (93.0 IP, 70 xFIP-) vs. Kershaw (108.0 IP, 49 xFIP-)
The author, who has made a habit in life of stating the obvious, is compelled to state it here once again: a ball game featuring both Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw promises to be an absorbing ball game. One doesn’t require the assistance of an arbitrarily calculated “pleasure” metric to reach this sort of conclusion. Indeed, it’s common knowledge.

To render this brief entry worthwhile, then, let’s consider some knowledge that’s less common — in this case, regarding the etymology and provenance of the surname Kershaw. No less than 30 seconds of research reveals that the name is derived from northern Middle English kirk (meaning “church”) and shaw (“grove”). Both logic and also Ancestry.com suggest that one bearing such a surname would have likely resided near the church grove.

In conclusion, this entry has eluded total worthlessness.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

Two Other Brief Notes
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Arizona at Philadelphia, starts at 13:05 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 updated results for television broadcasts are available by means of this hyperlinked text; for radio, by means of this other 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 June 20, 2016

Away		SP	TM	GM	TM	SP		Home	Time
Shelby Miller	AZ	0	6	3	2	5	PHI	Jeremy Hellickson	13:05
Madison Bumgarner	SF	7	5	5	5	3	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Miguel Gonzalez	CHA	3	3	6	8	8	BOS	Steven Wright	19:10
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	2	4	4	6	6	MIA	Paul Clemens*	19:10
Nate Karns	SEA	5	5	4	4	1	DET	Mike Pelfrey	19:10
Drew Smyly	TB	8	7	7	8	5	CLE	Josh Tomlin	19:10
Kevin Gausman	BAL	7	7	5	5	1	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Jaime Garcia	STL	5	6	6	6	7	CHN	John Lackey	20:05
Jhoulys Chacin	LAA	5	3	4	6	3	HOU	Doug Fister	20:10
Stephen Strasburg	WAS	10	7	8	6	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	22:10

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 wholly fallible author.