Daily Notes, With Two Playoff-ish-esque-like Games

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

1. Today’s Two Featured Games
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Two Featured Games
Regarding a Thing That Happens
It is not uncommon, during a late-season game of some consequence, it’s not uncommon for an announcer to suggest that there is a “playoff-like atmosphere” within the relevant ballpark.

A Note on Two Games This Afternoon
Two games this afternoon, while unlikely to possess a “playoff-like atmosphere,” might at least offer a “playoff-ish-esque-like atmosphere” — which is to say, similar to playoff-like, just not as dramatic.

What One of Those Games Is
One of the games of note today is the Pittsburgh-St. Louis one at 2:15pm ET.

Regarding That First Game, Its Credentials
The Pittsburgh-St.Louis game features one team (in the Pirates) currently qualified for the second wild-card spot and another (in the Cards) just a single game out of same.

Regarding That First Game, Another Notable Thing
The Pittsburgh-St. Louis game also represents the return from injury of left-hander Jaime Garcia (66.1 IP, 94 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR) after more than a two-month absence due to a shoulder impingement situation.

The Second Game in Question
The second game that might possess a playoff-ish-esque-like atmosphere is the Tampa Bay-Los Angeles of Anaheim one at 3:35pm ET.

The Second Game in Question, Its Credentials
The Tampa Bay-Los Angeles game features one team (in the Rays) currently in the wild-card lead in the American League and another (in the Angels) just 3.5 games back from the second wild-card spot.

Regarding That Second Game, Another Notable Thing About It
The author would be remiss — and not just a little bit, but like inconsolably so — not to call attention to the game’s starting pitchers, Matt Moore (137.0 IP, 106 xFIP-, 1.9 WAR) and Zack Greinke (149.0, 76 xFIP-, 4.0 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcasts
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer St. Louis Radio and Tampa Bay Radio for the two games in question here (link).

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Baltimore at Detroit | 13:05 ET
In point of fact, were the author to have included a third game likely to possess a “playoff-ish-esque-like atmosphere,” this would have been it. Baltimore currently has the second wild-card spot; Detroit is a single game out of same.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore or Detroit Radio, Either One.

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 4.1.

Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	5	1	6	4	8	DET	Doug Fister	13:05
Matt Harrison	TEX	5	6	3	6	4	TOR	Hend. Alvarez	13:07
Chris Volstad	CHN	4	1	3	4	8	CIN	Mat Latos	13:10
Chad Billingsley	LAN	6	1	5	8	4	ATL	Mike Minor	13:35
Jeremy Hefner	NYN	5	2	4	6	9	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	13:35
Ian Kennedy	AZ	5	7	2	4	0	HOU	Arm. Galarraga	14:05
Jose Quintana	CHA	5	4	3	8	2	KC	Jeremy Guthrie	14:10
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	5	2	8	3	MIL	Randy Wolf	14:10
Jeff Karstens	PIT	6	5	8	9	8	STL	Jaime Garcia	14:15
Josh Johnson	MIA	7	3	4	8	5	COL	Drew Pomeranz	15:10
Matt Moore	TB	7	4	8	8	9	LAA	Zack Greinke	15:35
Justin Masterson	CLE	5	3	5	6	6	OAK	Jarrod Parker	16:05
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	3	4	3	5	4	SD	Clayton Richard	16:05
Samuel Deduno	MIN	0	4	1	4	4	SEA	Blake Beavan	16:10
Josh Beckett	BOS	5	6	4	7	6	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	20:00

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.