One Night Only: Game Previews for September 21st

Almost certainly a metaphor.

New York NL (4) at St. Louis (3) | 20:15 ET
What the Deal Is
The deal with this game is that, after winning last night — but also letting the Braves win, too — that the Cardinals are 2.5 games back in the NL Wild Card race.

What That Means to Cool Standings
What that whole thing means to Cool Standings is that the Cardinals have about an 18% chance of making the playoffs.

The Cardinals’ Playoff Chances, A Brief History Of
Looking over the internet records, one finds that St. Louis’s odds of making the playoffs are the highest they’ve been since August 15th, when they (i.e. the playoff odds) were 20%.

The Cardinals’ Playoff Chances in Context
To get a sense of how good the Cardinals’ chances are, consider that the Rays’ — who everyone’s freaking about — consider that their chances of making the postseason are less than 9%.

Other Things People Are Freaking About
All of the things, all of the time.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Mets Television.

Two Other Games
Tampa Bay (7) at New York AL (10) | 13:05 ET
In which AL East titans clash and, just as with the real Titans, are gruesomely slayed by the Olympic gods — i.e. Must-See TV.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Rays Television.

Tampa Bay (7) at New York AL (10) | 19:05 ET
In which the second verse is the same as the first.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Rays 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 5.8.

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
Wandy Rodriguez	HOU	5	4	3	5	3	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	12:35
James Shields	TB	8	7	8	10	4	NYA	Phil Hughes	13:05
Randy Wolf	MIL	2	8	5	4	9	CHN	Matt Garza	14:20
Anthony Bass*	SD	7	6	4	6	3	COL	Aaron Cook	15:10
Ross Ohlendorf	PIT	5	4	4	9	4	AZ	Wade Miley	15:40
Mark Buehrle	CHA	3	2	4	4	7	CLE	Ubaldo Jimenez	19:05
Jeremy Hellickson	TB	3	7	8	10	10	NYA	CC Sabathia	19:05
John Lannan	WAS	4	5	4	3	6	PHI	Vance Worley	19:05
Dan Haren	LAA	7	5	7	6	7	TOR	Dustin McGowan*	19:07
Derek Lowe	ATL	6	5	7	8	5	FL	Javier Vazquez	19:10
Tommy Hunter	BAL	6	2	6	9	7	BOS	Josh Beckett	19:10
Max Scherzer	DET	8	2	6	10	7	KC	Felipe Paulino	20:10
Michael Pineda	SEA	10	0	5	0	5	MIN	Kevin Slowey	20:10
Chris Schwinden*	NYN	7	4	10	3	8	STL	Jaime Garcia	20:15
C.J. Wilson	TEX	6	9	6	1	8	OAK	Brandon McCarthy	22:05
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	5	3	5	4	5	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.