Six Pack of Stats: Astros 8, White Sox 2

Houston, we had a problem.

The Chicago White Sox are swept out of Houston with struggling pitching, poor defense, and almost nonexistent extra-base hits. Luckily, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Seattle Mariners are the two upcoming series that should help the Sox regain their confidence and swagger.

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The Starters

Dallas Keuchel, in his homecoming to Houston, had a rather rude welcoming. Through 2 ²⁄₃ innnings, Dallas gave up seven hits, six runs (only half were earned — the defense was not too excited about this homecoming, either), and four walks. He did strike out three and avoided giving up a home run.

His laboring 79 pitches looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Lance McCullers Jr. put together a quality start. Through six innings, he gave up two hits and two runs; however, he walked four and gave up a long ball, while only striking out four.

Hie economic 94 pitches break down like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

With the bases loaded and two outs in the second, Abraham Toro tallied a 2.86 LI RBI single, which broke open the scoring, 1-0.

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Pressure Cooker

Need I say this here? Dallas Keuchel’s -.440 WPA does harken back to his rough start to the season. Get it all out now; besides, it is Houston. Dallas is still Keuchel’s city.

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Top Play

In the top of the second, following the Astros breaking open the scoring, Jake Lamb scraped a home run over the right-field wall for a two-run shot, giving the South Siders a 2-1 lead ... for a brief moment before it all went downhill again.

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Top Performer

I do not know how this keeps happening, but Jake Lamb keeps making a positive impact most times when he is inserted in the lineup. Only making one out all game, tallying a two-run home run, and being solid in the outfield, Lamb’s .228 WPA makes him today’s top performer.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Of the six most-hard hit baseballs, surprisingly it was McCullers Jr. gave up four of them, but Keuchel gives up the hardest hit, at 114.2 mph: a Taylor Jones double in the third inning.

Weakest contact: In a game where there were far more hard hits than weak contact, Jose Altuve’s 44.9 mph ground out in the second made sure to represent for all the weak contact out there.

Luckiest hit: Against Zack Burdi in the fifth, Chas McCormick somehow (well, it should have been a Yoán Moncada error) recorded a single on a baseball that is only a hit 2% of the time, just an absolute dagger to the Sox who played poorly throughout the weekend.

Toughest out: The third highest xBA of the game (.870) resulted in an out for Yordan Alverez’s liner in the eighth.

Longest hit: Carlos Correa’s home run in the fourth traveled 380 feet.

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Magic Number: 43

On the bright side, the Sox have the same amount of wins as the Astros to this point in the season.

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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

Sunday games are always a hard sell, none as much as a getaway day game after an 0-3 start to a series. Still, we mustered 131 comments. steely3000 was the runaway winner.

No green at all today, but that Ballantini guy got three combined recs, at least. Here are the tops of the day: