Six Pack of Stats: Brewers 7, White Sox 1

The Milwaukee Brewers secured the first game of this three-game series against the Chicago White Sox, and it was pretty uneventful until the latter innings.

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The Starters

Lucas Giolito pitched like an ace, as his stuff was not there, but he kept the Brewers to one run through six complete innings. This quality start did see six hits given up and five walks, but Lucas muscled through his lack of control and a few pitches with a lack of framing. He did notch three strikeouts and struck out twice himself, but he kept his team in great position to win.

Giolito’s 91 pitches can be analyzed below:

Baseball Savant

Freddy Peralta, in his abbreviated start to keep him fresh him for the playoffs, went four innings. He only allowed three baserunners: an Andrew Vaughn double, Leury García walk, and Zack Collins intentional walk. All three of these plays occurred in the second inning, which loaded the bases with two outs just for Lucas Giolito to strike out and end the inning. I love National League baseball.

Regardless, Peralta did his job while also striking out five. His 51 pitches can be charted as so:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

With runners on the corners in the seventh and one out, Tim Anderson’s ground ball was thrown home to get Collins at the plate for a 3.55 LI play. Instead of getting the double play, it kept the inning open with two on and two outs, but Brian Goodwin could not cash in any runs, and they games stayed a 1-0 deficit at the time.

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Pressure Cooker

Jace Peterson’s 2.63 pLI can be attributed to leaving the bases loaded after being the first pinch-hitter for the pitcher’s spot.

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Top Play

Rowdy Tellez’s single with the bases loaded in the fourth scored a single run (.100 WPA), but it proved to be the winning run as the Brew Crew shut out the South Siders.

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Top Performer

Although he had left the game long before it got exciting, Freddy Peralta pitched to a precedent and his .214 WPA gave his team the chance they needed to win.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Christian Yelich’s 107.2 mph single in the first and 108.3 mph line out in the eight goes down as tonight’s hardest hits, but the third-hardest hit of the night had a little more drama: With one on and one out for the Sox in the seventh, Gavin Sheets pinch-hit for Gio and notched a 106.7 mph single to put runners on the corners. Unfortunately, neither runner scored and the Sox remained behind, 1-0.

Weakest contact: Adam Engel’s 43.4 mph ground out in the second was by far tonight’s weakest contact. The next closest? Jace Peterson’s 69.9 mph pop out in the fourth.

Luckiest hit: Zack Collins’ beat-the-shift single in the fifth is only a hit 8% of the time.

Toughest out: Yelich smoked a 108.3 mph line out in the eighth that had a .620 xBA.

Longest hit: Tyrone Taylor’s seventh inning grand slam went 401 feet.

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Magic Number: 2

Tony La Russa and Tim Anderson were both ejected during tonight’s game. TLR showed some fire for his team, and Anderson had enough of tonight’s strike zone. After he was ejected, an umpire said something to him because he got, justifiably, HEATED. Jason Benetti related it back to the Brad Keller situation, circa 2019.

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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

AnoHito dominated tonight’s 266-comment gamethread.

Almost all of the green went to Pointerbabe tonight, reacting to the “sky is falling” vibe from some readers. Here’s her tops tonight, with six recs: