One Night Only: Game Previews for September 15th

Jeremy Hellickson: already angry at you.

Tampa Bay (7) at Boston (10) | 19:10 ET
Brass Tacks
In terms of why this game is interesting, it’s because these two teams begin a four-game series today with one team (the Rays) exactly four games behind the other (the Red Sox) in the AL Wild Card race.

A Note Regarding Jeremy Hellickson
Jeremy Hellickson, who’s starting tonight for Tampa Bay, entered the season as one of the game’s most interesting prospects, thanks to his command and excellent changeup.

A Second Note Regarding Jeremy Hellickson
Hellickson’s season has maybe been a bit disappointing in light of his pedigree. Line: 170.1 IP, 15.6% K, 8.5% BB, 33.8% GB, 4.48 SIERA, 4.57 xFIP, 114 xFIP-.

A Third Note Regarding Jeremy Hellickson
Hellickson has faced 56 total batters over the last two games and struck out only three of them.

A Fourth Note Regarding Jeremy Hellickson
The author would mention none of this to Hellickson himself, owing to how the latter appears to be constantly annoyed and is almost definitely carrying a shiv of some description.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Red Sox Television.

Alterna-Game
Washington (6) at New York NL (4) | 13:10 ET
Rookies Tom Milone and Chris Schwinden, both noted for pitching above their stuff, make their third and second major-league starts tonight, respectively. (And, yes, that’s the same Tom Milone who’s game-worn and autographed hat you can buy from Latino night on August 8th, 2011 at at Alliance Bank Stadium on August 8, 2011 that’s green, yellow, and red.)

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Nationals or Mets 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 5.2.

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
Tom Milone*	WAS	8	6	6	4	8	NYN	Chris Schwinden*	13:10
Anibal Sanchez	FL	9	8	5	3	2	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	14:35
Randy Wells	CHN	3	4	4	5	7	CIN	Homer Bailey	19:10
Jeremy Hellickson	TB	3	7	8	10	7	BOS	Kyle Weiland*	19:10
Alex Sanabia*	FL	5	8	6	3	10	PHI	Cliff Lee	19:35
Fausto Carmona	CLE	6	4	7	8	6	TEX	Alexi Ogando	20:05
Mark Buehrle	CHA	3	2	3	10	4	KC	Jeff Francis	20:10
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	5	3	4	6	5	COL	Jhoulys Chacin	20:40
Max Scherzer	DET	7	2	5	1	8	OAK	Brandon McCarthy	22:05
Ross Ohlendorf	PIT	4	5	4	4	6	LAN	Dana Eveland*	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.