One Night Only: Game Previews for September 23rd

The Pixies’ 1987 ode to the Allen Craig/Matt Holliday situation.

Chicago NL (4) at St. Louis (3) | 20:15 ET
Obligatory Playoff-Race Note
The Cardinals of St. Louis are currently 2.0 games behind the Braves of Atlanta with six games remaining, giving them (i.e. the Cards) about a 24% chance of making the playoffs, per Cool Standings.

Something You May Know
Something you may know is that, with Matt Holliday (hand) currently out, that Allen Craig has been playing regularly in his (i.e. Holliday’s) absence.

Something You May Not Know
Craig, who’s hitting .312/.359/.529 (.347 BABIP), 150 wRC+ in 207 plate apperances this season, actually has a better rest-of-season ZiPS projection than Holliday.

Something You May Not Know, Part II
Here are those lines, specifically.

Craig: .286/.333/.571 (.300 BABIP), .387 wOBA

Holliday: .300/.364/.500 (.333 BABIP), .376 wOBA

One Caveat Regarding Those Projections
One caveat (of the probably many extant caveats) regarding those projections is that Craig has been protected from righties a little bit. Only two-thirds of the pitchers he’s faced are righties; for an everyday player, that figure would probably be above 80%.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Cubs Television.

Two Other Games
Toronto (6) at Tampa Bay (7) | 19:10 ET
This game would feature two of the game’s most excellent young players in Desmond Jennings and Brett Lawrie — had the latter not selfishly broken his middle finger, that is.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Blue Jays Radio.

Atlanta (5) at Washington (5) | 19:05 ET
Stephen Strasburg is probably not the precise pitcher whom the Atlanta Braves (up by two games in the NL Wild Card) would care to face.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Nationals Television.

Also Playing
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 5.8.

The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP	Home		Time
Tim Hudson	ATL	6	5	8	5	10	WAS	Strasburg*	19:05
Alfredo Simon	BAL	5	2	4	2	5	DET	Rick Porcello	19:05
Jon Lester	BOS	6	9	6	10	3	NYA	Freddy Garcia	19:05
Edinson Volquez	CIN	7	5	5	5	6	PIT	Jeff Locke*	19:05
Carl Pavano	MIN	4	0	4	4	7	CLE	Justin Masterson	19:05
Cole Hamels	PHI	9	3	7	3	9	NYN	R.A. Dickey	19:10
Brandon Morrow	TOR	10	6	10	7	9	TB	David Price	19:10
Drew Pomeranz*	COL	8	6	6	4	6	HOU	Brett Myers	20:05
Anthony Vasquez	SEA	3	1	4	9	6	TEX	Matt Harrison	20:05
Chris Volstad	FL	7	8	7	8	9	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	20:10
Bruce Chen	KC	2	10	4	2	7	CHA	Zach Stewart	20:10
Ryan Dempster	CHN	7	4	10	3	8	STL	Chris Carpenter	20:15
Matt Cain	SF	6	3	4	9	2	AZ	Joe Saunders	21:40
Ted Lilly	LAN	5	5	3	6	2	SD	Wade LeBlanc	22:05
Gio Gonzalez	OAK	6	1	5	5	5	LAA	Jered Weaver	22:05

NERD represents an attempt to anticipate the watchability of a game for the baseballing enthusiast.
To learn more about Pitcher NERD, click here and scroll down a little.
To learn more about latest Team NERD, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.