One Night Only: Game Previews for August 21st
Winston Churchill, were he alive, would be confounded by Luis Valbuena.
Featured Game
Cleveland (6) at Detroit (2) | 13:05 ET
• Rookie Jason Kipnis, in case you hadn’t heard, was placed on the 15-DL on Friday.
• With Orlando Cabrera gone, that leaves 25-year-old semi-enigma Luis Valbuena to pick up the majority of second-base starts.
• Luis Valbuena, Triple-A: 883 PA, .302/.388/.470.
• Luis Valbuena, Major Leagues: 791 PA, .223/.283/.340.
• Semi-enigma!
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Cleveland 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 5.6.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubaldo Jimenez | CLE | 7 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 6 | DET | Rick Porcello | 13:05 |
| Yovani Gallardo | MIL | 7 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 9 | NYN | R.A. Dickey | 13:10 |
| Josh Collmenter | AZ | 5 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 6 | ATL | Tim Hudson | 13:35 |
| Mike Leake | CIN | 7 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | PIT | James McDonald | 13:35 |
| Roy Halladay | PHI | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 0 | WAS | Chien-Ming Wang | 13:35 |
| Michael Pineda | SEA | 10 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 8 | TB | James Shields | 13:40 |
| Dan Runzler* | SF | 7 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 6 | HOU | Henry Sosa* | 14:05 |
| Jon Lester | BOS | 7 | 10 | 6 | 10 | 6 | KC | Danny Duffy | 14:10 |
| Ivan Nova | NYA | 5 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 3 | MIN | Nick Blackburn | 14:10 |
| Derek Holland | TEX | 7 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 6 | CHA | Gavin Floyd | 14:10 |
| Chad Billingsley | LAN | 5 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 5 | COL | Kevin Millwood* | 15:10 |
| Brian Matusz | BAL | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 7 | LAA | Jerome Williams* | 15:35 |
| Anibal Sanchez | FL | 10 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 9 | SD | Cory Luebke | 16:05 |
| Luis Perez* | TOR | 7 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | OAK | Gu. Moscoso | 16:05 |
| Jake Westbrook | STL | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | CHN | Rodrigo Lopez | 20:05 |
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.
I presume Jason Donald will get more starts than Valbuena at 2nd while Kipnis is on the DL.
Oh, right. Jason Donald. Maybe a better option. Way less enigmatic, though.