Six Pack of Stats: Royals 9, White Sox 1

Well, that was not fun. The Chicago White Sox faced the Kansas City Royals in the second game of three this series. Not only did the White Sox use up their ability to hit last night, but the pitching was atrocious, as well. The Royals were out for revenge, and found it early.

Here is some Hawk Harrelson content in case you missed the honorary first pitch. A nice pick-me-up before I break down this dumpster fire game.

Congrats on the 2019 Ford C. Frick Award, Hawk!

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The Starters

Lucas Giolito, also known as 2018’s worst pitcher in baseball got the start for the White Sox. Giolito has shown improvement lately, with three quality starts as of late, bringing his ERA down and looking more like his 2020 self. Unfortunately, the five earned runs and 67 pitches in the first three innings painted a different picture for Giolito this evening.

Giolito’s 81-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Right-handed pitcher Carlos Hernández started for the Royals, having pitched well against the Good Guys just last week. On paper, his 4.98 ERA coming into this game was not great. However, the White Sox still struggled to hit anything off Hernández.

Hernández’s 93-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

This game didn’t start off great, with Whit Merrifield stealing third base, putting himself in position to make it home on Ryan O’Hearn’s sac fly. Merrifield’s steal, in a low LI blowout, was at the top with 1.92 LI.

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Pressure Cooker

Lucas Giolito clearly struggled from the first pitch on, allowing the Royals five runs before being pulled after just four innings. Giolito’s pLI was 0.66.

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Top Play

Edward Olivares got very lucky in the second inning, with a home run that put the Royals up by two early on. The WPA for the solo home run was .101.

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Top Performer

As a surprise to no one, most of the White Sox ended up in the negatives as far as WPA goes. Tonight’s shining star was Royals starting pitcher Carlos Hernández, after pitching five innings, allowing one run, and collecting a WPA of .15.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: In an attempt to keep the game alive, Tim Anderson singled in the sixth inning off of Josh Staumont. Anderson’s sole hit for the evening left the bat at 109 mph.

Weakest contact: Hunter Dozier’s third inning ground out off of Giolito exited the bat at only 41.4 mph.

Luckiest hit: Edward Olivares’ second inning home run only had an xBA of .130.

Toughest out: Ryan O’Hearn seemed to have control of his at-bat in the third inning, with two foul tips and two balls, but instead grounded out to second. O’Hearn’s xBA was .780 for that at-bat.

Longest hit: The White Sox won one thing by two whole feet. Their only run scored thanks to José Abreu’s 413-foot home run.

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Magic Number: 17

While this game was not fun to watch, take solace by knowing the Royals are still 17 games behind the White Sox as I’m writing this.

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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’s a lot to ask of our dear readers, apparently, to comment on a weeknight blowout vs. the Royals. Pointerbabe brought the fire, however, scoring 20 of the 87 total comments.

Just one touch of green tonight, coming from Pointerbabe, natch. It’s a sentiment hard not to get behind: