I’ve noticed a recurring question in most of my chats. For the past several weeks, a similar query has shown up time and again, and that query is, to paraphrase: “where do the Brewers actually have to be in order to be a deadline buyer?” And I’ve mostly ignored the query, or brushed it aside, because while in one sense it was a worthwhile question, I didn’t think it was going to matter. I assumed the Brewers would fade away. I imagine nearly all of us assumed the Brewers would fade away. No reason for them to change the course of their rebuild.

I can tell you this: there’s still time. Still time for the Brewers to collapse, or regress, or do whatever might be your preferred word for the action. Still time for the Brewers to stop being good. But on Thursday, the Brewers went into Chicago and they throttled the Cubs so badly that Jon Jay was asked to handle the ninth. Importantly, the Brewers added to their lead in the division. No less importantly, the Brewers closed in on the second wild-card slot. The Brewers have played more than half of their games, and they’ve won more than half of the games that they’ve played. The Brewers have indeed positioned themselves to buy.

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On Monday, while investigating Jonathan Lucroy’s mysterious framing decline, I noted that Buster Posey and Yadier Molina have also had noticeable falls from the framing elite this season.

Posey ranked as the game’s best framing catcher last season (26.5 framing runs), according to Baseball Prospectus , and has fallen to 28th thus far this season, with just 0.5 framing runs to his credit. Molina has fallen from ninth last season (9.0 framing runs) to 38th (with a mark of -0.5).

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The overriding theme of the 2017 season to date has been a wave of homers, many of them hit into the stratosphere courtesy of the sport’s new wave of sluggers, like Cody Bellinger, Miguel Sano, and, of course, Aaron Judge. Somewhat under the radar, the game’s three best starting pitchers, Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer and are doing what they always do — namely, dominate.

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Clayton Kershaw is an outlier, and for the more number-oriented among us, outliers can be best appreciated through their statistics. One could investigate Kershaw with the same enthusiasm with which one could investigate Barry Bonds. Maybe more fittingly, he’s like a modern-day Pedro Martinez. His career could be considered an accumulation of incredible fun facts. There’s the one about how his five-year ERA is still holding under 2.00. There’s the one about how Kershaw allowed an identical .521 OPS in three consecutive seasons. (In the fourth season, Kershaw got better.) It’s overwhelming to think about gathering all the best Kershaw fun facts. There are too many. You might already have your own favorite.

Now I have another fact to add to the list. It’s a little bit different — it’s as much about the hitters as it is about Kershaw himself, and it isn’t even necessarily good. What it is is an outlier. It’s another Kershaw stat that stands out from the pack. It requires some digging to get to, but the effort, I think, is worthwhile, because seldom do you ever encounter such statistical separation.

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It’s quite possible that — as recently as last night, with the Orioles preparing to finish their series against the Brewers — that Manny Machado had no idea who’d be on the mound for the Twins this evening. That sort of knowledge, and the preparation that goes along with it, would have to wait until Baltimore was finished with Milwaukee. The young third baseman doesn’t like to look too far ahead. I learned that when I spoke to Machado earlier this season.

At the time of our conversation, the Orioles were in Boston to play the Red Sox. His club would be facing the White Sox next, and I was interested to know when Chicago — and, specifically, their pitchers — would begin entering Machado’s consciousness. Here’s what he had to say.

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Machado on preparing for a series: “I don’t really think ahead. I think it’s the same way for most of the guys in this clubhouse — you have to stay in the moment. Today we have to face Chris Sale, so why would we think about the White Sox coming up? We have to worry about one of the best pitchers in the game, and what we’re going to do against him. We just prepare for the guy we’re going to face tonight. We stay with our same routines in the cage, and on the field, as well.

“Every time you go into a series, you kind of want to know who the three or four starters are going to be, but that’s just right before the series starts. I don’t know who is pitching for Chicago yet. Once the series here is over, I’ll take a look to see who we’ve got coming. I’ll kind of prepare myself mentally and start creating my plan for that series.

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“Watch a batting practice of mine and it’s real boring,” said Freddie Freeman with a smile. The Atlanta first baseman is back, and he’s playing third base right now. You’d think the change of position might be the strangest thing about him. After studying angles with the team’s infield coach Ron Washington, though, he feels like playing third won’t actually be so difficult. What’s weirder is his approach during batting practice. As both his numbers and geometry suggest, however, his unusual BP strategy makes sense for him.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Boston at Tampa Bay | 19:10 ET
Sale (120.2 IP, 62 xFIP-) vs. Faria (32.1 IP, 78 xFIP-)
Imagine how good Chris Sale has been in your head. Now imagine a pitcher who’s been roughly 18% worse than that. Who do you see? Jacob Faria, is one possible answer according to the numbers. Faria’s been one of the majors’ best pitchers since his debut almost precisely a month ago. This game represents an opportunity to observe both him and Sale and the wondrous indoors of Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston or Tampa Bay Radio.

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Episode 754
Owing to a confluence of circumstances, including his own impending fatherhood, the author is compelled to ask Dave Cameron: “If a parent’s sole, awful intent were to raise a future major leaguer, how would he or she go about that endeavor?” Using both objective data and also wild speculation, the guest attempts to answer that hopeless question.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 18 min play time.)

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