Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 5, Reds 0

That was a win that had everything: Several solo shots including a back-to-back-to-back from TA-Yaz-José, four scoreless from a rehabbed Dallas Keuchel, a gut-wrenching loss for Trevor Bauer (sorry guys, don’t want him), gutsy relief work anchored by manchild Matt Foster. Whew. What fun!

FanGraphs

The Starts

Go figure, Dallas Keuchel comes out admittedly rusty and sluggish, like a guy who’d hardly touched a mound in 11 days, and threw four more scoreless innings, landing with a game score of 57, which nudged him under 60 to 59.9 for the season.

Bully boy Bauer was docked heavily for the only two runs he gave up, solo shots to Tim Anderson and Nomar Mazara, and finished with an equal 57 game score.

Pressure Play

After the game, Keuchel called his start one of the luckiest of his career. Luck or not, with the bases full and two outs in the second inning, Kid Keuchy coaxed a 2.88 LI fly out from Nicholas Castellanos (anybody out there still want to hand that guy $48 million over three years?), the greatest pressure of the game.

Pressure Cooker

Codi Heuer came on for a seventh inning that saw the score still just 2-0, thus, a pressure-cooker ballgame. He sailed through 2.11 pLI with a walk and a K — and per Ricky postgame, if the runs hadn’t come in the top of eighth, Heuer might have been asked to throw another stanza.

Top Play

Nomar Mazara’s first White Sox homer led off the fifth and came at premium value, at .132 WPA. The homer that broke the ice in the game upped the Good Guys’ win expectancy from 50% to 63.2%.

Game MVP

Once again it’s a starting pitcher, with Keuchel’s crazy-high seven Ks (tying his season high with the Sox in two fewer innings) helping him to a .222 WPA. After being shut out of last night’s MVP ballot, the White Sox swept tonight, with Foster (.149) and Anderson (.127) rounding it out.

Magic Number: 5

This was the fifth time this season the White Sox hit five or more homers in a game. Let me remind you that the season is only 52 games old.