One Night Only: Game Previews for August 6th
Today’s edition of One Night Only is prepared to shock you in your mind.
Featured Game
Atlanta (6) at New York Nationals (5) | 19:10 ET
• Unless you’re a Met fan or own him in a fantasy league, there’s a strong chance you’re unaware of how well Jonathon Niese’s (9) 2011 is going.
• Which, I say that mostly because I, personally, was unaware of how well Niese’s 2011 was going.
• By way of illustration, here are fives names after Niese’s on the xFIP leaderboard: Justin Masterson, Jon Lester, C.J. Wilson, Jered Weaver, Josh Beckett.
• Weird and great, right?
• Also weird and great: most every available photo of Klaus Kinski.
Watch: New York Television.
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 5.7.
Note: Nate Eovaldi will be making his major-league debut for the Dodgers. Eovaldi at Double-A Chattanooga: 103.0 IP, 8.65 K/9, 4.02 BB/9, 0.26 HR/9, 3.05 FIP.
Note: Zach Stewart, and not Jake Peavy, will start for the White Sox.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johnny Cueto | CIN | 6 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | CHN | Carlos Zambrano | 13:05 |
| CC Sabathia | NYA | 10 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | BOS | John Lackey | 16:10 |
| Cole Hamels | PHI | 10 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 6 | SF | Matt Cain | 16:10 |
| Chris Narveson | MIL | 6 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 5 | HOU | Brett Myers | 19:05 |
| Cory Luebke | SD | 10 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | PIT | Paul Maholm | 19:05 |
| Brandon Morrow | TOR | 10 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | BAL | Chris Tillman | 19:05 |
| Tommy Hanson | ATL | 8 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 9 | NYN | Jonathon Niese | 19:10 |
| Jake Peavy | CHA | 8 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | MIN | Carl Pavano | 19:10 |
| Justin Verlander | DET | 10 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 7 | KC | Danny Duffy | 19:10 |
| Brandon McCarthy | OAK | 7 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 6 | TB | Alex Cobb | 19:10 |
| Chris Carpenter | STL | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | FL | Ricky Nolasco | 19:10 |
| Fausto Carmona | CLE | 5 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 5 | TEX | C.J. Wilson | 20:05 |
| Undecided* | LAN | 5 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 2 | AZ | Joe Saunders | 20:10 |
| Livan Hernandez | WAS | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | COL | Jhoulys Chacin | 20:10 |
| Blake Beavan | SEA | 4 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 2 | LAA | Tyler Chatwood | 21:05 |
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.
Very Handsome Author Sir,
Who holds the record for the highest game NERD this season?
Equally Handsome Reader-Commenter,
There’ve definitely been two NERD game scores of 9.
See here:
Arizona at Kansas City from June 23rd:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/one-night-only-hot-game-previews-for-june-23rd/
Cleveland at Arizona from June 28th:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/one-night-only-game-previews-june-28th-30th/
Maybe there’ve been some others, too.
In any case, this is what’s generally known as a Mega Game.
I mean, I’m sure you already knew that, though.
Is a Mega-Game comparable to watching “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus?”
On another note, is 3 the lowest game score we’ve had so far this season? I’ve looked through a bunch and I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything. So likely, I’ve missed a ton. I find it interesting there have been exponentially more “unwatchable” games than mega games.
By the way, I vote to assign Danny Duffy the nickname of “Duffman.” I submit into evidence, the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7JY2V_GEuE&feature=related
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2IisGMAbo (Perfect intro. music)
I rest my case.
No, nothing is comparable to watching Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
It may be comparable however to Spring Break: Shark Attack!
…or picked up Niese in the late second round of your strat-o-matic keeper league.
Wait, Philly v SF, NYY v Bos, Cle v Tex are all less watchable than Det v KC? I understand Velander is pretty awesome…but come on.
The first point to make, obviously, is that, if you’d prefer to watch those other games, then you should very definitely trust yourself. That’s a given.
The second point is that the difference between a 7 and 8 isn’t so huge.
A lot of the differences you’re noting have to do with either/both (a) the weighting of starting pitchers in the Game Scores and/or (b) a potential flaw in how the playoff-odds adjustment is applied — that is, to the Team NERD scores, and not the overall Game scores. I think I’ll probably experiment with some changes therein.
Finally, allow me to submit that watching John Lackey pitch is distinctly not pleasing.
Aguirre!!! I met Klaus in a bank in Marin County Calif. He signed a bank receipt for me. What a nice man. I told him I loved him in his works with Werner Herzog (especially “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe”) and he did a dead on impersonation of Herzog! Cracked me up. I guess he died in Marin a few years later : < (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ymyiRXCszc
Yes, what a great movie! My favorite of all time.
The biggest problem with NERD: it doesn’t account for games in which there were brawls the previous night. When may we expect this oversight to be fixed?
are you really the god