One Night Only: Game Previews for August 12th
Poorly conceived, poorly executed.
Featured Game
Los Angeles Americans (5) at Toronto (6) | 19:07 ET
• On the one hand, David Price (10) and CC Sabathia (10) face each other in New York tonight.
• On the other hand, that game is largely meaningless as regards playoff implications.
• Meanwhile, the Angels are just two games behind the Rangers.
• And Brandon Morrow (10, as well) is pitching excellently this season.
• Like, the type of excellent where he has the seventh-best SIERA (3.02) among qualified pitchers — i.e. better (if only slightly) than both Price and Sabathia.
Audio Feed: Blue Jays Radio.
Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.5.
The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brad Penny | DET | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 6 | BAL | Alfredo Simon | 19:05 |
| Carl Pavano | MIN | 4 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 7 | CLE | Justin Masterson | 19:05 |
| David Price | TB | 10 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 10 | NYA | CC Sabathia | 19:05 |
| Livan Hernandez | WAS | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 10 | PHI | Cole Hamels | 19:05 |
| Ervin Santana | LAA | 7 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 10 | TOR | Brandon Morrow | 19:07 |
| Mat Latos | SD | 8 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | CIN | Bronson Arroyo | 19:10 |
| Matt Cain | SF | 6 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 7 | FL | Ricky Nolasco | 19:10 |
| Carlos Zambrano | CHN | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 7 | ATL | Mike Minor | 19:35 |
| Bruce Chen | KC | 2 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 4 | CHA | Zach Stewart | 20:10 |
| Paul Maholm | PIT | 3 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 10 | MIL | Zack Greinke | 20:10 |
| Aaron Cook | COL | 2 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | STL | Kyle Lohse | 20:15 |
| Dillon Gee | NYN | 3 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 7 | AZ | Ian Kennedy | 21:40 |
| C.J. Wilson | TEX | 6 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 7 | OAK | Brandon McCarthy | 22:05 |
| John Lackey | BOS | 4 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 4 | SEA | Blake Beavan | 22:10 |
| Bud Norris | HOU | 7 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 10 | LAN | Nathan Eovaldi* | 22:10 |
NERD represents an attempt to anticipate the watchability of a game for the baseballing enthusiast.
To learn more about Pitcher NERD, click here and scroll down a little.
To learn more about latest Team NERD, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
let’s not forget the rain of boos vernon wells will receive, to both hilarious and shameful results
There is a campaign underway to not boo Wells.
See: http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2011/8/8/2352539/please-do-not-boo-vernon-wells
Highlight quote:
Twitter and agree that VW deserves applause, send out thwips using the #dontbooVW tag over the next few days.
While the sentiment is admirable, good luck with that. Personally, I hope for no boos, it isn’t as if Wells is bad guy at all. He’s more like a guy who won the lottery, except in order for him to actually collect his winnings he has to still go to work every day and act like he’s retired instead of being actually retired like everyone else in his situation would be.
the really sad thing is the jays paid vernon like 60M for a decade of his services. people complained about his contract and the jays arent even the ones who ultimately paid for much of it at all. it was severely backloaded
I agree 100% with Steve.
Using a simple $5MM of worth per WAR, his excess value over what we paid him, is something like $61.75MM over the past 10 years (including this years $5MM, and Juan Rivera’s $5.25MM).
How someone like that gets boo’ed boggles my mind.
Why boo Wells? It’s not like he demanded a trade or deliberately sucked to force a trade. He’s a guy who always ran out grounders and popups when many others wouldn’t. He often played when perhaps he shouldn’t have because of injuries.
Finally, he is highly recognized for his philanthropy, both elsewhere and in Toronto. He won the MLB award for his contributions.
If you are booing him because of his contract, note that the Jays actually haven’t paid that much for it. LAA is on the hook for it, not the Jays. Also, if your boss came to you and offered to triple your salary, would you refuse?
Cheer for a good former player who had problems reaching his potential but always played hard. If you can’t bring yourself to cheer, then sit on your hands. Don’t boo one of the genuine good guys in baseball.