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.