One Night Only: Hot Game Previews for June 23rd

Tonight’s featured game is brought to you by the adjective Mega.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. An expanded preview of tonight’s Arizona-Kansas City contest — known to basically everyone as Mega Game 2011.

2. A brief note — namely, that there are only five games tonight, so plan your life accordingly.

3. Very proprietary Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of tonight’s five dumb games.

Arizona (10) at Kansas City (10) | 20:10 ET
Starting Pitchers
Diamondbacks: Daniel Hudson (9)
101.0 IP, 7.66 K/9, 2.14 BB/9, 42.1% GB, 3.40 xFIP, 91 xFIP-

Royals: Felipe Paulino (8)
41.2 IP, 7.56 K/9, 3.24 BB/9, 53.7% GB, 3.51 xFIP, 90 xFIP-

Regarding This Game, A Promotional Nickname It Should Have
Mega Game 2011!

Regarding That Nickname, Why It’s Appropriate
Because these two teams feature an impressive array of talent.

Regarding That Nickname, Why It’d Be Really Effective, Probably
Because it sounds like a Japanese video game, a little bit.

Regarding the Aforementioned Talent, Specifics Of
In terms of this game, this game will likely feature a number of talented young players, including (but not limited to): Justin Upton (23 years old), Eric Hosmer (21), and Mike Moustakas (22).

Regarding Another Name You Might See, The Person Attached To It
In terms of another player you might see is Wily Mo Pena, to whom NotGraphs’ Patrick Dubuque crafted a wondrous prose eulogy.

Regarding a Final Name You Might See, The Person Attached To It
Another-nother player you might see is Gerardo Parra — a.k.a. The Rifleman.

Gerardo Parra, Gratutitously Embedded Video Of
Below is some gratuitously embedded video of Diamondback outfielder Gerardo Parra making a fantastic throw. (For Maximum eEffect™, make sure to watch from the camera angle at the 0:24 mark or so.)

The Daily Slate
Here’re all of today’s game, with very proprietary NERD scores.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP	Home		Time
Michael Pineda	SEA	10	3	6	6	4	WAS	Jason Marquis	13:05
Graham Godfrey*	OAK	5	2	5	5	5	NYN	Chris Capuano	13:10
Brian Duensing	MIN	5	0	5	4	8	SF	Tim Lincecum	15:45
Daniel Hudson	AZ	9	10	9	10	8	KC	Felipe Paulino	20:10
Roy Oswalt	PHI	4	2	5	5	8	STL	Chris Carpenter	20:15

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 Team NERD, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD of 5 (or 10 for debuts)
Pitching probables and game times from MLB.com.