Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 13, Twins 8

Where does one even begin with such a fun night of baseball? You’ll get a more detailed recap from Bill Meincke, but here are some stats and a quick recap for tonight’s matchup against the Minnesota Twins.

It was southpaw night in Chicago, as Dallas Keuchel faced J.A. Happ. Keuchel was not showing his best work this evening, but the usual White Sox feasting on lefties trope and a little wild pitch offense saved the game.

The White Sox showed their speed early on with triples from José Abreu and Billy Hamilton. Abreu earned his 700th career RBI and put on a defensive clinic. Hamilton never slowed down at any point. In fact, some say he’s still running the bases and pretty soon security will have to ask him to leave. Andrew Vaughn also hit his first major league home run!

Hopefully the White Sox have another win planned for tomorrow for a series sweep, but buckle in and enjoy some stats and Billy Hamilton content.

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The Starters

Keuchel struggled a bit tonight, but picked up the pace again in the fifth inning. This could just be an effect of some lingering back tightness that dissipated as he warmed up. The bullpen had a little more time to get ready, before Keuchel was pulled at the top of the sixth inning.

Here is the breakdown for Dallas Keuchel’s 84 pitch outing:

Baseball Savant

Happ had a not-so-great night and was pulled in the fourth inning, at the 8-3 mark. His replacement, Shaun Anderson, was somehow even worse, and will be haunted by Yasmani Grandal and the fifth inning.

Here is the breakdown for J.A. Happ’s 89 pitch outing:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

In my short time of putting stats together, I discovered my highest LI yet. In the top of the second inning, Andrelton Simmons grounded into a double play to shortstop, with Max Kepler was out at second. This play weighed in at 2.81 LI.

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Pressure Cooker

Kyle Garlick actually faced the most pressure during the game, with a pLI of 0.77, followed closely by J.A. Happ tapping out at 0.74. The White Sox offense did not take their collective feet off of the gas until Evan Marshall entered the game, but regained steam from the seventh inning and on.

For the White Sox, Dallas Keuchel was in the hot seat, tipping the pLI scale to 0.71 from his rough few innings.

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Top Play

Andrew Vaughn’s first major league home run, in the bottom of the fourth inning, takes the cake for top play of the evening at .145 WPA. The home run also brought Yasmani Grandal home after a walk, and put the White Sox up by three runs.

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Top Performer

Billy “Wheels” Hamilton was the top performer of tonight’s game with a WPA of .186. Andrew Vaughn was a close second sitting at .174 WPA, but ultimately the speed and strength of Hamilton this evening put him over the edge. Hamilton spent his evening on a cycle watch after hitting a single, double and triple.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Nelson Cruz regrettably eked out a win for hardest-hit ball, as he hit a single off Dallas Keuchel in the sixth inning. The exit velocity for the hit was 112.3 mph. Right after the hit from Cruz was José Abreu’s single in the fourth inning, leaving the bat at 112.2 mph.

Weakest contact: Oddly enough, Nelson Cruz also had the weakest contact, with his seventh inning ground out off of Codi Heuer. That exit velocity only reached 41.9 mph.

Luckiest hit: Billy Hamilton clearly had speed on his side tonight, but Lady Luck was hanging around, too. His fifth inning single off of Shaun Anderson only had an xBA of .150, the lowest expected batting average that resulted in a hit.

Toughest out: Perhaps this was revenge for the stolen Abreu home run the night before, but Max Kepler found himself in the toughest out category this evening. His xBA tipped the scales at .780, but resulted in a line out in the eighth inning.

Longest hit: Andrew Vaughn’s fourth inning home run was top notch, and while I witnessed someone in a Luis Robert jersey in the seats snag the ball, I’m not entirely sure the ball has actually landed yet. The ball, which once had a family, traveled 436 feet.

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Magic Number: 1

A big congratulations to Evan Marshall, as he is the first of his family to graduate college. Prior to the start of the game, Marshall announced that he took his last final yesterday and is set to graduate from Kansas State this week with a degree in business administration and a minor in marketing.

In another first, Andrew Vaughn had a night he’ll never forget after crushing a ball and sending it 436 feet and into orbit.

A friend of the SSS family, Dick the Knife created a new stat (.crshd) to describe the hit. If you’re feeling brave, you can take a deep dive into the replies and learn about the velocity angle of vomit from the worst (or best!) nights of our drinking careers and the friends we made out with along the way. (Sorry Mom!)

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Glossary

Hard-hit is any ball off the bat at 95 mph or more
LI measures pressure per play
pLI measures total pressure faced in game
Whiff a swing-and-miss
WPA win probability added measures contributions to the win
xBA expected batting average

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South Side Sox Gamethread Stats

On a 223-comment night AnoHito steals the title back from Pointerbabe, in a decisive, 40-25 win.

Uribe Down makes it two in a row, with eight recs for this tasty retort. Honorable mention to horror1967, who got the place and show tonight.