One Night Only: Game Previews for July 27th

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in Spiritual Laws that “only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action we [are] strong.”

Please believe that this edition of One Night Only was composed as easily, simply, and spontaneously as possible.

As usual, the reader can find here our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for every one of today’s games.

Featured Game
San Francisco (5) at Philadelphia (3) | 19:05 ET
• Tim Lincecum (8) was scratched from Tuesday’s start with the “flu,” but I think we all know what “flu” means, right?*
• Influenza, is the answer. We just say “flu” because “influenza”‘s a long word.
• Lincecum faces Cole Hamels (10), currently fourth among qualifiers, and third on his own team, by xFIP and SIERA.
• Question: if some combination of Philly starters are the Tenenbaum children, who, do you think, is Eli Cash?
• Maybe Answer: Joe Blanton?

*Note: Matt Cain (7) would pitch tonight if Lincecum’s still sick. Manage your life decisions accordingly.

Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.3.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP	Home		Time
Ervin Santana	LAA	6	8	6	10	5	CLE	David Huff*	12:05
Felix Hernandez	SEA	9	2	4	5	0	NYA	Phil Hughes	13:05
Max Scherzer	DET	6	6	6	6	5	CHA	John Danks	14:10
Javier Vazquez	FL	4	4	4	4	3	WAS	Livan Hernandez	19:05
Tim Lincecum	SF	8	5	8	3	10	PHI	Cole Hamels	19:05
Alfredo Simon*	BAL	5	3	5	6	6	TOR	Ricky Romero	19:07
Bruce Chen	KC	2	6	4	5	4	BOS	John Lackey	19:10
Mike Pelfrey	NYN	2	5	4	8	4	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	19:10
Paul Maholm	PIT	3	7	5	6	5	ATL	Jair Jurrjens	19:10
Brian Duensing	MIN	5	0	4	7	4	TEX	Colby Lewis	20:05
Carlos Zambrano	CHN	3	1	6	9	10	MIL	Zack Greinke	20:10
Bud Norris	HOU	8	4	7	7	8	STL	Chris Carpenter	20:15
Ian Kennedy	AZ	6	9	8	3	10	SD	Cory Luebke	22:05
James Shields	TB	9	4	6	1	5	OAK	Trevor Cahill	22:05
Aaron Cook	COL	2	4	4	3	6	LAN	Hiroki Kuroda	20:10

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.
Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire.