Six Pack of Stats: Twins 1, White Sox 0

The Chicago White Sox faced the Minnesota Twins for a matinee rubber game before heading off to the cornfields of Dyersville, Iowa for the highly-anticipated Field of Dreams game. Reynaldo López was great, but the White Sox’s offense was nonexistent today.

A lot of players are resting today and previously scheduled starter Lance Lynn has been bumped to tomorrow after news broke that Carlos Rodón has been moved to the 10-Day Injured List with shoulder fatigue.

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The Starters

Reynaldo López got the start in this unscheduled bullpen game. Since returning to Chicago, López won his first game and has improved overall, coming into today’s game with a low ERA of 1.59. ReyLo looked fantastic today, with a pickoff in third inning and only gave up one hit in three innings with 51 pitches.

Lopez’s 51 pitch outing looked like this, which earned him a game score of 56:

Bailey Ober started for the Twins and also looked great. In a game of uncertainty of what the pitching would even look like, it quickly turned into a pitchers’ duel. Ober allowed six hits, but kept the Twins’ chances of winning high by getting out of jams and dominating even the best White Sox hitters with his fastball.

Ober’s 82 pitch outing looked like this, garnering a game score of 64:

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Pressure Play

Brian Goodwin hoped to tell the Twins to kick rocks in the ninth inning, but grounded out to second instead. With any sign of a rally slowly crumbling, the first out in the ninth topped the LI charts at 2.91.

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Pressure Cooker

Our old friend Alex Colomé had the most pressure cooking with the game on the line for the Twins. Without any strikeouts and one walk, Colomé had a pLI of 2.18 in his 2/3 innings pitched.

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Top Play

Jorge Polanco sealed the win with his sixth-inning home run off a struggling José Ruiz. This put the Twins in win mode with a WPA of .173.

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Top Performer

Bailey Ober shut the White Sox down early on, not allowing a single run in his five innings pitched. His WPA was 0.284.

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Smackdown

Hardest Hit: Eloy Jiménez’s fourth-inning single was the hardest hit, coming off the bat at 107.5 mph.

Weakest contact: Jake Cave’s pop-out bunt against Garrett Crochet in the fifth inning had the weakest contact at 41 mph.

Luckiest hit: Despite having a great game, Jorge Polanco’s xBA for his ninth inning triple was only .050. The ball looked gone but bounced off the wall, keeping him from scoring.

Toughest out: Adam Engel had a chance to change the momentum of the game in the ninth inning when he smacked the ball 382 feet. The xBA was an astounding .750, but ended in a fly out.

Longest hit: The lone run in the game, belonging to Jorge Polanco, also went the farthest distance at 416 ft.

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Magic Number: 18

Did the Twins win this series? Yes. However, no need to fret as they are still 18 games back.

Enjoy your evening and stay safe if you’re traveling to Iowa — I hear there are some creepy children in the corn.

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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

There was quite a lot of competition, but congratulations to Nello and everyone who tied for the most recs this afternoon.