Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 4, Astros 0

After a shaky beginning of the weekend series, the Chicago White Sox take Sunday’s game from the Houston Astros to secure the second-half-of-the-season, opening-series win!

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The Starters

Carlos Rodón continues what he started before the All-Star break. He threw seven one-hit innings and matched Cease’s 10 strikeouts from Friday night. Want to know what’s even better than the one hit Los gave up? He walked absolutely no one. If he’s not leading the AL Cy Young race, I’m not sure who else can.

Rodón’s very-efficient 98 pitches looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Framber Valdez never faced any real trouble throughout the game, just gave up some single-run innings four times. Through 6 ¹⁄₃ innings, Valdez scattered seven hits (two solo home runs), four runs, and two walks. He struck out four, but more importantly for Framber, he racked up 14 ground outs.

His 97 pitches break down like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Danny Mendick’s second inning RBI single opened the day’s scoring, giving the Sox a 1-0 lead at the time with a 1.73 LI play.

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Pressure Cooker

Yordan Alvarez’s 0-for-3 afternoon accumulated a .090 pLI, as he crumbled under the pressure of the Sox sea and could not help his team resurface to the shores.

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Top Play

Given the shutout, Mendick’s RBI single in the second (.106 WPA) was all the South Siders needed to win this game.

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Top Performer

With a .376 WPA performance, Los undoubtedly deserves today’s top performer award.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Yoán Moncada blasted a 108.3 mph shot with a .810 xBA for a solo home run in the fourth inning.

Weakest contact: The last contact play before Moncada’s home run was Michael Brantley’s 62.2 mph ground out, for the weakest contact of the game.

Luckiest hit: Andrew Vaughn’s .050 xBA single in the fifth just does not happen 95% of the time.

Toughest out: Adam Engel’s third inning ground out had a .510 xBA.

Longest hit: YoYo’s solo homer traveled 383 feet.

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Magic Number: 7

Carlos Rodón has started 16 games this season, and in SEVEN of them, he has kept the opposing hitters to two hits or less. That is astronomically amazing.

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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

Nello brought the fire this weekend, tipping AnoHito by one comment in their Sunday rematch. It was a 154-comment game.

A decent flurry of green this afternoon, topped by distinctly different comments earning four recs, from Matt and SSE: