One Night Only: Game Previews for September 28th


Look at all of these unemployed babies.

Boston (9) at Baltimore (2) | 19:05 ET
New York AL (10) at Tampa Bay (7) | 19:10 ET
Philadelphia (3) at Atlanta (5) | 19:10 ET
St. Louis (3) at Houston (4) | 20:05 ET
On Why There’re Four Games Here
Everyone, even tiny babies, knows why there are four games here: because each of these games includes a team tied, on the last day of the season, for the Wild Card in their respective league.

On How Such a Thing Happened
Everyone wrote to their senator and asked for it, probably.

On How Such a Thing Will End
Copious butt-slapping, win or lose.

On How All Those Tiny Babies Found Out
They probably have access to the internet or something, just like everybody else.

If I Had My Druthers
• Babies would stop having all this access to the internet.
• They (i.e. the babies) would go out and get a job like everybody else.
• You know, for the economy.

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MLB.TV Audio Feed: All of the Channels, All of the Time.

Two Other Games
Colorado (6) at San Francisco (3) | 15:45 ET
Though his five-something ERA doesn’t show it, Drew Pomeranz (12.2 IP, 3.74 SIERA, 3.86 xFIP, 100 xFIP-), posting a 54.1% ground-ball rate so far.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Giants Radio.

Washington (5) at Florida (8) | 16:10 ET
Stephen Strasburg (18.0 IP, 2.86 SIERA, 2.79 xFIP, 72 xFIP-) his fifth and final start of an abbreviated 2011 season.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Nationals 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 5.5.

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
Edinson Volquez CIN 7 5 4 3 3 NYN Miguel Batista* 13:10
Brandon Morrow TOR 10 6 6 2 5 CHA Philip Humber 14:10
Drew Pomeranz* COL 8 6 3 3 0 SF Eric Surkamp 15:45
Stephen Strasburg* WAS 10 5 7 8 7 FL Chris Volstad 16:10
Jon Lester BOS 6 9 7 2 6 BAL Alfredo Simon 19:05
Zach McAllister* CLE 6 4 5 3 6 DET Rick Porcello 19:05
Undecided NYA 5 10 10 7 9 TB David Price 19:10
Joe Blanton PHI 9 3 9 5 6 ATL Tim Hudson 19:10
Chris Carpenter STL 8 3 8 4 6 HOU Brett Myers 20:05
Matt Harrison TEX 6 9 6 5 7 LAA Garrett Richards* 20:05
Bruce Chen KC 2 10 3 0 4 MIN Carl Pavano 20:10
Jeff Locke* PIT 5 5 6 8 10 MIL Zack Greinke 20:10
Ryan Dempster CHN 6 3 4 6 4 SD Wade LeBlanc 20:35
Ted Lilly LAN 5 4 3 8 2 AZ Joe Saunders 21:40
Gio Gonzalez OAK 6 1 2 0 1 SEA Anthony Vasquez 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.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

14 Comments
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Slartibartfast
14 years ago

“The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment.”

This must be some usage of the word improved I’m not familiar with.

Yirmiyahu
14 years ago

Carson, I have to object to your plan for all of The Babies to find jobs. It would not be good for the economy. The problem with the economy isn’t that there aren’t enough workers. Rather, the problem is that there aren’t enough jobs. You’d be making the problem worse.

So, I offer a counter-proposal: that all of The Babies start businesses, to hire the unemployed masses.