Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 7, Orioles 5

The Chicago White Sox sweep the Baltimore Orioles to officially end the first-half of the season.

Get your rest during the All-Star Break, SSS nation; it’s going to be a fun and eventful second half of the season!

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The Starters

Dylan Cease had a similar outing to Lucas Giolito’s on Saturday. Cease pitched five complete innings, giving up two hits (including a two-run home run), two runs, and two walks. He struck out six and was really never in any major trouble throughout his start. Albeit, it is the Orioles, but you still have to show up and pitch.

Cease’s (only) 85 pitches break down like this:

Baseball Savant

Cease’s mound opponent, Spenser Watkins, had a very solid performance as well. In 4 ¹⁄₃ innings, Watkins gave up four hits (including Andrew Vaughn’s first long shot of the innning), one run, and three walks. He did strike out four batters. Overall, not bad for a third career MLB game.

Watkins, too, left the game after only 83 pitches:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Andrew Vaughn’s second home run of the afternoon took a 2-1 Orioles lead to a 4-2 White Sox advantage, all at a 3.17 LI too.

However, there was another three-run homer hit a little while later, in the 10th inning: Adam Engel’s 4.99 LI, game-winning blast.

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Pressure Cooker

With two on and the winning run at the plate twice, Matt Foster induced the two outs needed in the 10th inning to secure a save and a White Sox dub! With a 4.18 pLI, not too shabby of a job for Foster, though some luck was on his side:

Baseball Savant

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Top Play

An out away from closing out the game in the ninth and with a runner on base, Liam Hendriks gave up a game-tying, two-run, .490 WPA shot to Home Run Derby participant Trey Mancini.

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Top Performer

Trey Mancini’s .490 WPA just beats out Andrew Vaughn’s .431 WPA and Adam Engel’s .445 WPA to earn today’s top performer honors.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Andrew Vaughn’s solo home run in the fourth left his bat at 108.7 mph. An inning later, Tim Anderson smoked a 105.8 mph single, but its velocity was not enough to overtake Vaughn’s for hardest hit.

Weakest contact: Cedric Mullens’ 22.5 mph single in the first and Leury García’s 29.1 mph sacrifice bunt in the second (Why are we bunting in the second inning, or at all?) are the respective weakest contact plays for each ballclub this afternoon.

Luckiest hit: Speaking of Leury, his eighth inning single produced a .190 xBA.

Toughest out: Also, speaking of Cedric, his 392-foot fly out in the fifth had an xBA of .860. Unfortunately for the Orioles and fortunately for the Sox, DJ Stewart’s 407-foot, .930 xBA fly out was not a walk-off home run.

Longest hit: Vaughn’s solo home run in the fourth traveled 447 feet and only accounted for one run, but his home run in the sixth, which only traveled 385 feet, tallied home three.

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Magic Number: 3

Andrew Vaughn’s two home runs (one solo, one a three-shot), and Adam Engel’s three-run blast in the 10th are all the South Siders needed to claim victory and sweep the O’s in both this weekend series and the season series.

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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

It was a hearty, 308-comment gamethread for the first half finale, in which wissoxfan83 crushed all other commenters.

Leadoff hitter Pointerbabe led quite a collection of green today, with nine recs on her birthday wishes: