Six Pack of Stats: Rays 9, White Sox 3

Today against Tampa Bay, the Chicago White Sox were going for their first series sweep of the season, but the Rays jumped off to a hot start and didn’t look back. Maybe the Sox should have worn the ’83 jerseys for some better luck.

The Starters

Vince Velásquez had a rather ambivalent start this Sunday afternoon. Giving up four runs (three earned) in the first, he settled down for a scoreless end of the outing (a total of 4 ²⁄₃ innings). In fact, three of his five hits and all three walks originated to the first inning. Velásquez did tally five strikeouts, but the damage was done.

His 85-pitch day breaks down like this:

Baseball Savant

Sharing the bump, J.P. Feyereisen — a reliever by nature — only went two innings, as Tampa’s opener. Three of the six outs he recorded came via the strikeout. In five games this season, Feyereisen owns a 0.00 ERA.

His 28 pitches looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

With the bases loaded for the second time in the game, Yasmani Grandal — Sox down 4-1 in the fifth — popped out to second base on a 3.59 LI play.

Pressure Cooker

Tampa’s Jalen Beeks, notching his first hold of the season, pitched a clean 1 ²⁄₃ innings and tallied two strikeouts and a 2.13 pLI.

Top Play

With the bases loaded for the first time in the game during the fourth inning, Gavin Sheets recorded a HBP RBI to trim the lead to 4-1, on this .093 WPA play.

Top Performer

What happens when you can perform well under pressure? You become top performer. Jalen Beeks’ .165 WPA beats out Adam Engel’s .162 WPA.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Ji-Man Choi’s 107.1 mph line out in the fifth almost beat out Wander Franco’s 107.3 mph line out in the second for today’s hardest-hit ball.

Weakest contact: Manuel Margot’s bunt ground out in the third inning left his bat at 18.1 mph — speeding in a parking lot! Imagine!

Luckiest hit: Wander Franco’s batted ball in the first inning is a hit 8% of the time. Today was that 8%.

Toughest Out: Thinking he got all of it (and he did), Tim Anderson was admiring a home run ball into the left-field bleachers in the first inning, until Josh Lowe snagged it for an out.

Longest hit: Edging out Tim’s out (too redundant?) in the first by a foot, Josh Lowe’s 381-foot fly out (third time!) in the third (wait, didn’t I just say “third?”) inning takes the cake for today’s longest hit.

Magic Number: 5 ¹⁄₃

In his first three games of his MLB career, Tanner Banks has not allowed a run, over a span of 5 ¹⁄₃ innings.

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