Six Pack of Stats: Twins 4, White Sox 3

The Minnesota Twins found a little bit of some late offense to squeeze past the Chicago White Sox and force a rubber match for tomorrow afternoon’s free YouTube Game of the Week.

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The Starters

Dallas Keuchel pitched five innings of two-run baseball to begin his outing. Unfortunately, in the sixth inning, Keuchel was working through the order for the third time. With a runner on and two outs, Keuchel gave up a go-ahead blast to Willians Astudillo, for a 4-3 Twins score.

Ultimately, through six innings of work, Dallas gave up four runs, four hits, four walks, and only struck out one to his 10 ground outs.

His 102 pitches can be summarized here:

Baseball Savant

Griffin Jax, for only having eight career games before tonight, looked like a veteran. If not for giving up back-to-back home runs in the third to score three runs, his stat line would have been three hits, zero runs, one walk, and 10 strikeouts through six pitches. Even adding the home runs, Jax still recorded a quality start.

His 83 pitches can be dissected below:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

With a lead off single in the eight for Tim Anderson, Adam Engel recorded a 3.44 LI fly out, slowing down some late-inning momentum.

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Pressure Cooker

Tyler Duffey, after giving up a lead off hit in the eighth, had to deal with a 2.83 pLI to record the hold, and he was successful.

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Top Play

Without a doubt, Willians Astudillo’s two-run, go-ahead, line drive rocket in the sixth provided a .346 WPA for the Twins.

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Top Performer

Notching the save for the Twins, former South Sider Alex Colomé recorded a .169 WPA to secure the victory for the Twinkies.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: José Abreu loved his 108.4 mph home run in the third, but as he always wants to improve, Pito powered a 110.4 mph double in the sixth for the hardest hit of the game.

Weakest contact: Contrary to Abreu, Max Kepler was trying to do the most at an easy pace. Although this play ended in a ground out, Kepler achieved tonight’s weakest contact, at 71.0 mph.

Luckiest hit: Mitch Garver, against a 94% chance of an out, recorded a single in the third.

Toughest out: Miguel Sanó has struggled with basket catches this series, and on top of it, he couldn’t buy a hit with a 98.8 mph, .590 xBA batted baseball that went for a ground out in the fourth. Yet, Abreu wanted to outdo Sanó with a .600 xBA line out to third in the eighth.

Farthest hit: Adam Engel’s two-run blast to center field to tie the game 2-2 in the third traveled 416 feet.

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Magic Number: 0-for-3

There were not many chances with runners in scoring position, but the Sox could not do a whole lot in these hard-to-come-by situations in this game.

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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 Rubio stays on a roll, winning this 342-comment gamethread handily over 1969Vikings.

Pointerbabe’s astute comment about our new temp PBP guy earned the most recs tonight, with six: