Daily Notes, With a Table Concerning Yu Darvish

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Featured Game: Oakland at Texas, 20:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Oakland at Texas, 20:05 ET
With Regard to Japanese Sensation Yu Darvish
With regard to Japanese sensation Yu Darvish, who starts tonight for Texas, here’s his line so far this season: 44.1 IP, 25.9% K, 12.2% BB, 47.0% GB, 3.64 SIERA, 88 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR.

Regarding Darvish’s Line So Far, What’s Notable
What’s notable about Darvish’s line so far this season is the degree to which it’s improved since his first three starts. Consider this table, for instance:

Starts IP K% BB% GB% xFIP
First 3 17.2 16.3% 15.0% 42.1% 4.89
Last 4 26.2 33.3% 10.0% 51.7% 2.29

A Thing That Was Useful in the Manufacture of That Table
A thing that was useful in the manufacture of that table was the updated game-logs page added to the site on Tuesday by FanGraphs founder and darkest of overlords David Appelman.

Another Thing That Was Useful in the Manufacture of That Table
Another thing that was useful in the manufacture of that table was the Guts page (which contains the FIP constant, for example) that was added to the site towards the end of April — also by my handsome and virile employer David Appelman.

Why the Author Mentioned Those Recent Additions to the Site
As a service to the public, one imagines.

Why Else the Author Mentioned Those Additions
To greater promote his own “job security,” one imagines.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Oakland Television (link).

Other Notable Games
Seattle at Cleveland | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Felix Hernandez starts for Seattle. Here’s a thing that’s largely unchanged for Hernandez so far this year (in 59.0 IP) relative to recent seasons: his strikeout and walk rates (24.8% and 6.8 %, respectively). Here’s a thing that has changed, but only slightly: his ground-ball rate (47.7% this season, after sitting in the low-to-mid 50s for most of his career). Here’s a thing that’s continued to change: his average fastball velocity (91.6 mph this season, 93.4 mph in 2011, 94.4 mph in 2010). Here’s what has changed dramatically: his changeup usage (currently 37.9%, 22.0% in 2011, 16.2% in 2010, 5.3% in 2009).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle.

Baltimore at Kansas City | 20:10 ET
Felipe Paulino makes his third start of the season for the Royals. His line so far: 11.2 IP, 25.5% K, 6.4% BB, 43.8% GB, 3.03 SIERA, 75 xFIP-, 0.3 WAR. He faces a Baltimore team ranked eighth in batter/fielder WAR as of Monday.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore.

Today’s Complete Schedule
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 4.8.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away   SP Tm. Gm. Tm. SP   Home Time
Chris Capuano LAN 4 5 4 5 4 SD Clayton Richard 18:35
Nick Blackburn MIN 2 3 4 2 7 DET Rick Porcello 19:05
Erik Bedard PIT 6 1 6 2 9 WAS Gio Gonzalez 19:05
Felix Hernandez SEA 7 3 3 3   CLE Ubaldo Jimenez 19:05
Hiroki Kuroda NYA 3 7 4 5 4 TOR Kyle Drabek 19:07
Clay Buchholz BOS 1 6 3 7 2 TB Jer. Hellickson 19:10
Mike Leake CIN 5 3 5 2 7 NYN Johan Santana 19:10
Mark Buehrle MIA 3 4 5 8 7 ATL Mike Minor 19:10
Randy Wolf MIL 1 6 5 6 7 HOU Bud Norris 20:05
Tommy Milone OAK 4 4 6 10 7 TEX Yu Darvish 20:05
Vance Worley PHI 7 4 6 3 7 CHN Matt Garza 20:05
Tommy Hunter BAL 4 6 6 7 8 KC Felipe Paulino* 20:10
Patrick Corbin* AZ 6 6 5 8 3 COL Jamie Moyer 20:40
Gavin Floyd CHA 5 4 5 2 5 LAA Jerome Williams 22:05
Jaime Garcia STL 5 10 5 3 5 SF Mad. Bumgarner 22:15

To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores 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.

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grumpy old dude
11 years ago

Cistulli, fix the CSS on these tables.

Ryan
11 years ago

Looks fine to me, save Ubaldo’s missing NERD score (which, frankly, may have been intentional. I’m not sure how NERD handles negative numbers).