One Night Only: Hot Game Previews for May 10th

An accurate portrait of life at FanGraphs Headquarters.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for three games: Tampa Bay at Cleveland, Halladay at Johnson, and Arizona at San Francisco.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of tonight’s games.

3. All the dreams of all the beautiful children.

Tampa Bay (8) at Cleveland (10) | 19:05 ET
Starting Pitchers
Rays: Andy Sonnanstine (N/A)
ZiPS (RoS): 95.0 IP, 5.59 K/9, 2.37 BB/9, 1.04 HR/9, 3.99 FIP

Indians: Josh Tomlin (6)
40.2 IP, 5.09 K/9, 1.77 BB/9, .157 BABIP, 41.3 GB%, 14.9% HR/FB, 3.79 xFIP, 97 xFIP-

Notes
• If you were to make a list of qualified pitchers with a lower swinging-strike percentage than Josh Tomlin, that list would be way longer than you’re probably imagining.
• For example, here are the three names right after his on that particular leaderboard: Cliff Lee, Jered Weaver, Josh Johnson.
• On the other hand, if you were to make a list of qualified pitchers with a lower average fastball velocity, that list would probably be exactly as long as you’re imagining.
• “Ten pitchers,” is the answer of how long.
• Boom: evidence.

If I Had My Druthers
• “Ten pitchers” would be the answer to other things.
• Like, “Hey Carson, what’s an amount of beer you’ve never wanted to drink because it’d be gross?”
• Or, “Hey Carson, misspell the word pictures and also put the number ten in front of it.”

Philadelphia (2) at Florida (6) 19:10 | ET
Starting Pitchers
Phillies: Roy Halladay (10)
53.1 IP, 9.62 K/9, 1.18 BB/9, .308 BABIP, 53.5 GB%, 2.4% HR/FB, 2.14 xFIP, 58 xFIP-

Marlins: Josh Johnson (8)
48.1 IP, 8.57 K/9, 2.79 BB/9, .212 BABIP, 48.7 GB%, 2.4% HR/FB, 2.95 xFIP, 80 xFIP

Notes
• About Roy Halladay, someone might be compelled to say something like, “I’ve run out of superlatives to describe him.”
• I just checked, though, and there are a whole bunch of superlatives left.
• Like bonniest, for example.
• Or bloodthirstiest, too.
• And that’s just the Bs.

Arizona (10) at San Francisco (3) | 22:15 ET
Starting Pitchers
Diamondbacks: Ian Kennedy (6)
45.0 IP, 7.40 K/9, 2.40 BB/9, .265 BABIP, 40.0 GB%, 6.1% HR/FB, 3.46 xFIP, 93 xFIP-

Giants: Tim Lincecum (10)
47.1 IP, 10.84 K/9, 3.04 BB/9, .289 BABIP, 56.6 GB%, 6.7% HR/FB, 2.39 xFIP, 65 xFIP-

Notes
• Let’s do a brief status check on Lincecum’s numbers, how about — and how they compare to his career averages (in parentheses), I mean.
• Strikeout rate? Higher. (Career: 10.11 K/9.)
• Walk rate? Lower. (Career: 3.24 BB/9.)
• Ground-ball rate? Higher. (Career: 47.3 GB%.)
• xFIP-? Lower. (Career: 74 xFIP-.)

If I Had My Druthers
• There would’ve been a better way of writing xFIP- right then.
• What’s the alternative, though? Expected FIP Minus?
• That’s crazy, Billy Murray.

Also Playing
These games are very likely playing at some kind of sporty channel near you.

pNERD = Pitcher NERD
tNERD = Team NERD
Game = Time and Average NERD for Game
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD of 5 (or 10 for debuts)