One Night Only: Previews for Weekend of May 13th

Josh Collmenter, sans excellent mustache, makes his first major-league start on Saturday.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for five! five! five! weekend games — likely including your favorite team!

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

3. A programming note, as follows:

As a sort of experiment, I’ve weighted the NERD score for each game’s probable starters three times as much as the corresponding team score when calculating the NERD Game Scores for this weekend’s games. Accordingly, for each game, you’ll see the new, pitcher-heavy Game Score in the normal place and then, in the right-most column, on top, what the score would usually be and then, just below that, the difference between the pitcher-heavy and usual-type of score.

Like so:

Friday, May 13th
Philadelphia (2) at Atlanta (5) | 19:35 ET
• This game ought to be excellent for at least two reasons.
• Reason #1: it features the excellent Cole Hamels (10) and the intriguing Brandon Beachy (8).
• Reason #2: it’s taking place in the ballpark that features what is almost certainly the best available center-field camera shot of any major-league stadium.
• Really, there’s no reason to watch any other game today.
• Or, no good reason, that is.

Saturday, May 14th
Los Angeles Americans (7) at Texas (5) | 16:10 ET
• Dan Haren (8): 57.2 IP, 8.74 K/9, 1.25 BB/9, 43.3 GB%, 2.83 xFIP, 70 xFIP-.
• Derek Holland (8): 41.2 IP, 7.56 K/9, 3.67 BB/9, .354 BABIP, 48.8 GB%, 3.67 xFIP, 92 xFIP-.
• Holland’s numbers aren’t terrific; they’re just better than his 5.18 ERA is trying to tell you.

Arizona (10) at Los Angeles Nationals (3) | 19:10 ET
• Hacksaw Josh Collmenter makes his first major-league start tonight.
• Interesting thing about Collmenter: he has an 11:1 K:BB in his 14.0 innings so far this season.
• Other interesting thing: he has a 65.7 GB% so far, too.
• Third interesting thing: his fastball (which averages only 87.3 mph) actually has 0.9 inches of glove-side run.
• Because he throws it overhand, like an effing hatchet, is why.

Sunday, May 15th
Seattle (1) at Cleveland (10) | 13:05 ET
• Michael Pineda’s (10) rank among qualified pitchers in fastball velocity: 1st (96.0 mph).
• Pineda’s rank among same in strike percentage: 2nd (70.3%)
• Pineda’s rank among same in swinging-strike percentage: 3rd (12.7%).

Philadelphia (2) at Atlanta (5) | 13:35 ET
• Again, the Turner Field center-field camera is probably the best for seeing a pitcher’s stuff.
• In this case, it’ll be Roy Halladay’s (10) stuff we’re seeing.
• By which I mean his pitches. It’s Halladay’s pitches that we’ll be seeing.

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

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

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