One Night Only: Game Previews for September 8th

After a battery of tests, FanGraphs has verified that Chris Schwinden is not Miguel Batista.

Featured Game
Atlanta (4) at New York Nationals (4) | 16:10 ET
• Julio Teheran, one of baseball’s top pitching prospects, makes his third start of the season for the Braves.
• You can see Teheran’s numbers at Triple-A Gwinnett to the right of this colon: 144.2 IP, 7.59 K/9, 2.99 BB/9, 0.31 HR/9, 3.06 FIP.
• For the Mets, right-hander Chris Schwinden, 24, makes his major-league debut.
• While not necessarily a top prospect, Schwinden has the distinction of being not Miguel Batista.
• Which must be nice for Mets fans, at least.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Mets Television.

San Diego (6) at Arizona (8) | 21:40 ET
• Is anyone curious about how Aaron Hill’s performed since joining Arizona?
• If so, here’s that answer in number form: 56 PA, .392/.429/.627, .413 BABIP, 170 RC+.
• Replace the BABIP with Hill’s .284 career mark, and the result is a 110 wRC+
• Which, that’d still be his best performance since 2009 and second-best overall.
• Or, um, his best performance as a baseballer, that is.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Diamondbacks 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 5.1.

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
Chad Billingsley	LAN	5	4	4	6	5	WAS	Ross Detwiler	13:05
Ivan Nova	NYA	5	10	4	2	5	BAL	Alfredo Simon	13:05
Julio Teheran*	ATL	9	4	8	4	10	NYN	Chris Schwinden*	16:10
Mike Minor	ATL	9	4	5	4	3	NYN	Dillon Gee	Gm 2
Andrew Miller	BOS	1	10	4	6	6	TOR	Ricky Romero	19:07
David Huff	CLE	2	5	4	2	6	CHA	Gavin Floyd	20:10
Cole Hamels	PHI	10	3	6	8	5	MIL	Chris Narveson	20:10
Cory Luebke	SD	10	6	8	8	7	AZ	Ian Kennedy	21:40
Luke Hochevar	KC	5	10	3	0	2	SEA	Jason Vargas	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.