One Night Only: Game Previews for September 27th
NERD and Frankenstein’s monster have about 0.5 things in common.
New York AL (10) at Tampa Bay (8) | 19:10 ET
NERD v. Nerd
NERD — i.e. the numbers you see here designed to express in one figure the watchability of a team or player or game for the baseballing nerd — is totally trying to embarrass its creator today.
How It’s Doing That
By giving the Yankees-Rays and Red Sox-Orioles contests Game Scores of 9 and 7, respectively, while they (i.e. those games) very clearly feel like some of those most interesting games of the season.
Why That’s Happening, In Reality
The reason why that’s happening — the thing with the lower-than-expected scores — is because Boston’s playoff odds remain at about 63%. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s are only about 37%. (All per Cool Standings.)
A Red Sox Fan’s Opinion
Here’s how a Boston fan feels about his team’s chances at the moment:
A Red Sox Fan’s Opinion, Part II
Here’s how a Boston fan feels about nerds at the moment:
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Rays Television.
Two Other Games
Boston (9) at Baltimore (2) | 19:05 ET
This is a soap opera.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Red Sox Radio or Television.
Los Angeles NL (4) at Arizona (8) | 21:40 ET
Arizona prospect, right-hander Jarrod Parker, deserved a September call-up — and now he’s gotten one of those things.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Dodgers 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 5.3.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Erik Bedard | BOS | 6 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 5 | BAL | Zach Britton | 19:05 |
| Jeanmar Gomez | CLE | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 8 | DET | Max Scherzer | 19:05 |
| Bronson Arroyo | CIN | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | NYN | Chris Capuano | 19:10 |
| Bartolo Colon | NYA | 7 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 3 | TB | Jeremy Hellickson | 19:10 |
| Roy Oswalt | PHI | 5 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 6 | ATL | Derek Lowe | 19:10 |
| John Lannan | WAS | 4 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 5 | FL | Javier Vazquez | 19:10 |
| Jake Westbrook | STL | 3 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 5 | HOU | Henry Sosa | 20:05 |
| Sean O’Sullivan | KC | 0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 2 | MIN | Anthony Swarzak | 20:10 |
| Ross Ohlendorf | PIT | 4 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 3 | MIL | Randy Wolf | 20:10 |
| Henderson Alvarez | TOR | 9 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | CHA | Mark Buehrle | 20:10 |
| Hiroki Kuroda | LAN | 7 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 10 | AZ | Jarrod Parker* | 21:40 |
| Matt Garza | CHN | 10 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | SD | Anthony Bass* | 22:05 |
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 5 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 5 | LAA | Ervin Santana | 22:05 |
| Trevor Cahill | OAK | 5 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 | SEA | Blake Beavan | 22:10 |
| Alex White | SF | 5 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 10 | SF | Madison Bumgarner | 22:15 |
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.
Carson, see my comment about POFF on the Leaderboards of Pleasure post from yesterday, the Rays & Sox should really be getting bigger POFF adjustments than the Cards.
Yeah, saw that. And it’s true — the playoff-odds adjustments don’t do justice to today’s games.
If I were a “smarter” “person,” this would all be easier.
Yea, it must be a total brain buster to tweak the pOFF variable with a games remaining factor. But maybe you are worried about disrupting the delicate and finely tuned machine that is NERD…
Honestly, why even post it if it’s useless
Bart, if you think it is useless, why did you click on it?