One Night Only: Game Previews for September 25th
The sort of scissors utilized by both starters in today’s featured game.
Los Angeles NL (5) at San Diego (6) | 16:05 ET
Playoffs Schmayoffs
There are a couple games today — the Boston-New York ones, the Cardinal one — that have playoff implications, but the present author is like, “Talk to the hand, you games.”
Why the Author Is Saying That
Because his knowledge of popular slang is current up to only about 15 years ago.
Why Else the Author Is Saying That
Because none of the underdogs at this point has better than a 16% chance of making the playoffs — and this game probably represents that last time we’ll see Clayton Kershaw this season.
Something You Probably Know About Clayton Kershaw
Here’s the season line for Clayton Kershaw, Cy Young Candidate: 226.0 IP, 27.3% K, 6.0% BB, 43.4% GB, 2.65 SIERA, 2.82 xFIP, 73 xFIP-.
Something You Mayn’t Know About Kershaw’s Opponent
Kershaw’s opponent, Cory Luebke, has been almost as brilliant as Kershaw on a per-batter basis: 133.2 IP, 28.1% K, 7.6% BB, 38.9% GB, 2.67 SIERA, 2.97 xFIP, 77 xFIP-.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Dodgers Television.
Two Other Games
Boston (9) at New York AL (10) | 13:05 ET
Red Sox fans aren’t crying. They’ve just been cutting onions.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Red Sox Radio or Television.
Chicago NL (4) at St. Louis (3) | 14:15 ET
Say bonjour to DJ LeMahieu.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Cubs 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 5.6.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brian Matusz | BAL | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | DET | Brad Penny | 13:05 |
| Tim Wakefield | BOS | 7 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 7 | NYA | A.J. Burnett | 13:05 |
| Liam Hendriks* | MIN | 7 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5 | CLE | Fausto Carmona | 13:05 |
| Mike Minor | ATL | 8 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 5 | WAS | Ross Detwiler | 13:35 |
| Dontrelle Willis | CIN | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | PIT | James McDonald | 13:35 |
| Brett Cecil | TOR | 4 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 2 | TB | Wade Davis | 13:40 |
| Jhoulys Chacin | COL | 5 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 6 | HOU | Lucas Harrell* | 14:05 |
| Ricky Nolasco | FL | 7 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 5 | MIL | Chris Narveson | 14:10 |
| Luis Mendoza* | KC | 5 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 6 | CHA | Gavin Floyd | 14:10 |
| Roy Halladay | PHI | 10 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | NYN | Mike Pelfrey | 14:10 |
| Randy Wells | CHN | 3 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 8 | STL | Edwin Jackson | 14:15 |
| Charlie Furbush | SEA | 5 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 7 | TEX | Derek Holland | 15:05 |
| Rich Harden | OAK | 8 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 3 | LAA | Joel Pineiro | 15:35 |
| Clayton Kershaw | LAN | 10 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 10 | SD | Cory Luebke | 16:05 |
| Tim Lincecum | SF | 8 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 5 | AZ | Josh Collmenter | 16:10 |
| John Lackey | BOS | 4 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 5 | NYA | Ivan Nova | 18:30 |
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.
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