Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 5, Tigers 4

Coming off of a series win against Toronto late last night, the Chicago White Sox flew into Michigan late, but they were awake and ready to play against the Detroit Tigers, scoring runs early during this evening’s game!

After a rain delay, plus extra drama, the White Sox took the opener of the three-game set.

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The Starters

Lucas Giolito was on point tonight, and his slider is looking deadlier and deadlier to add to his already-established two-pitch mix (fastball and change). Tonight, G-elite-o notched a quality start by going six innings, sprinkling five hits and two runs. He only walked one batter to his nine strikeouts. Lucas has been plagued by the home run, so yeah, both runs given up were via the solo shot.

His 105-pitch outing breaks down like this:

Baseball Savant

See those slider numbers!? 60% whiff rate!

Tarik Skubal matched Lucas for the most part, but still fell a bit short tonight, In his six innings of work, Skubal have up seven hits and four runs (three earned). He struck out six to his three walks, and he did give up a solo shot.

His 96 pitches looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

After a 40-minute rain delay, Miggy Cabrera lead off the bottom of the ninth with a single off of Liam Hendriks. One out later, Daz Cameron notched his first career home run (2.67 LI) to right field to blow the save, tie the game, and force extra innings.

However, the pressure does not stop there. Yoán Moncada’s sac fly in the 10th (5.09 LI) scored Danny Mendick, who ended up being tonight’s winning run.

But wait, the top pressure play still has not occurred! With the 5-4 lead in the bottom of the 10th, Aaron Bummer (on for the save) produced a strikeout (6.05 LI), another strikeout (7.15 LI), and a ground out (6.72) to secure the win and notch the top trifecta of pressure plays.

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Pressure Cooker

At an astounding 6.06 pLI, Aaron Bummer felt all the pressure during his second save of the season, but he handled it like a boss. The lefty did have two friendly strike zone calls from the home plate ump, but Bummer got the job done.

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Top Play

Cameron’s two-run, post-rain delay blast notched an extraordinary .472 WPA.

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Top Performer

In two innings tonight, Garrett Crochet pitched lights-out baseball, as he preserved a two-run lead. Although he gave up a walk, Crochet struck out three in the six outs he covered and allowed zero hits and zero runs. His .178 WPA beats out Giolito’s .143.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: The fourth batter in the game, José Abreu, smoked a baseball 113.3 mph, only for it to be a line out, of course. Therefore, Adam Engel’s 106.9 mph solo home run in the second is the hardest “hit.”

Weakest contact: Harold Castro’s 71.6 mph, .190 xBA ground out against Garrett Crochet in the eighth was the weakest hit ball of the night.

Luckiest hit: Robbie Grossman’s single off of Lucas in the third had an xBA of .190.

Toughest out: As with the hardest hit ball of the night, Abreu’s 113.3 mph line out had a .720 xBA.

Longest hit: Yermín Mercedes beat Adam Engel’s 357-foot home run with a 384-foot fly out in the third.

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Magic Number: 13

In 15 innings of work, covering 13 straight appearance, Garret Crochet has given up zilch in the run column.

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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 Roll Call

Of 197 comments tonight, steely3000 had the most, to get back into the win column.

Site favorite KP notched both green comments of the night, with family matters as his tops: