One Night Only: Game Previews for August 16th

While certainly difficult to look at, white socks remain effective as ever.
Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Chicago Americans (2) | 20:10 ET
• The White Sox currently have a winning percentage of exactly .500.
• The last time they were at .500 wasn’t so long ago — July 29th.
• After which they immediately proceeded to go 0-6… and then 8-2 right after that.
• The last time they were above .500 is longer ago, however — April 15th, when they owned a 7-6 record.
• Last note: Ubaldo Jimenez with Cleveland: 2 GS, 13.0 IP, 23.2% K, 7.1% BB, 48.7% GB, 3.12 SIERA, 3.13 xFIP, 79 xFIP-.
Audio Feed: White Sox Television. (Unless Hawk Harrelson makes you physically ill, that is — in which case, try Cleveland Radio probably.)
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 5.6.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Shields | TB | 8 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 7 | BOS | Jon Lester | 13:05 |
| Josh Collmenter | AZ | 5 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 10 | PHI | Roy Halladay | 19:05 |
| Mike Leake | CIN | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | WAS | Chien-Ming Wang* | 19:05 |
| Nick Blackburn | MIN | 3 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 10 | DET | Justin Verlander | 19:05 |
| Chris Carpenter | STL | 8 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 5 | PIT | Jeff Karstens | 19:05 |
| Jonathan Sanchez | SF | 3 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 8 | ATL | Randall Delgado* | 19:10 |
| Jeff Niemann | TB | 5 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 7 | BOS | Erik Bedard | 19:10 |
| Ryan Dempster | CHN | 7 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 5 | HOU | Brett Myers | 20:05 |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | CLE | 7 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 5 | CHA | Gavin Floyd | 20:10 |
| Chad Billingsley | LAN | 5 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 7 | MIL | Yovani Gallardo | 20:10 |
| Ivan Nova | NYA | 5 | 10 | 5 | 10 | 6 | KC | Danny Duffy | 20:10 |
| Anibal Sanchez | FL | 10 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | COL | Jhoulys Chacin | 20:40 |
| Brian Matusz | BAL | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | OAK | Guillermo Moscoso | 22:05 |
| Jonathon Niese | NYN | 9 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 10 | SD | Cory Luebke | 22:05 |
| Derek Holland | TEX | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 2 | LAA | Tyler Chatwood | 22:05 |
| Brad Mills* | TOR | 5 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 3 | SEA | Jason Vargas | 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.
The Baltimore-Oakland game just makes me want to cry.
Have we had a 0 NERD game yet? That game looks like pure sadness.
No offense to the man, but I have never in my life wanted to watch Jonathon Niese pitch, hit, or take part in any baseball activities whatsoever, really.
I don’t entirely disagree with this sentiment.
Niese, I think, is more interesting as an idea — because the fact remains that he’s currently sandwiched by Felix Hernandez, David Price, Tommy Hanson, and Dan Haren on the xFIP Leaderboard, and, yet, he’s so Jonathon Niese-y.
as a mets fan, i must report that jon niese has a breaking ball that is large and quite often in charge
A NERD of zero? Ouch. It’s accurate, though.
For my money, I think AZ-PHI is the game to watch tonight. Arizona is interesting, Collmenter is fascinating, and Roy Halladay is Roy Halladay.
Yeah, I have to think that Collmenter should be higher than a 5 NERD. I mean, I know it’s formulaic, but that rating doesn’t pass the smell test…
“(Unless Hawk Harrelson makes you physically ill, that is — in which case, try Cleveland Radio probably.)”
is it plausible that listening to Hawk Harrelson doesn’t make a person physically ill?
Look, I’m a White Sox fan and I’m here to tell you all that Carson is just having some fun with you.
DO NOT allow Hawk Harrelson to talk to you. I’m not familiar with the Cleveland teams and Steve Stone will teach you some baseball but anybody who has ever seen a White Sox broadcast knows that friends don’t let friends listen to Harrelson.