Six Pack of Stats: Rangers 11, White Sox 9 (10 innings)

Coming off of a win yesterday, the Chicago White Sox went into their second game in the series against the Texas Rangers feeling confident — but they definitely shouldn’t have. Despite a very strong start, the South Siders let yet another winnable game slip away, with the Rangers eventually winning, 11-9, in 10 innings.

The Starters

Lucas Giolito kept the first four innings scoreless. But things began falling apart in the fifth, with Giolito eventually getting yanked having allowed four runs, including a homer, and six hits. In his five innings, Giolito managed to secure eight strikeouts, though his pitch velocity was a bit lower than his average.

Giolito’s 81-pitch effort looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Martín Pérez, having a killer 2022 season, started on the mound for Texas and got rocked. The White Sox scored six runs off of Pérez, with the pitcher allowing 12 hits and only managing to strike out four. His ERA climbed from 1.56 to 2.18 after his time on the bump, proving that the South Side offense can put up a fight ... sometimes ... temporarily.

Pérez’s uncharacteristically rough, 101-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

At the bottom of the 10th inning, Andrew Vaughn hit a sacrifice fly to center field, allowing Danny Mendick to score. It wasn’t enough to win the game for Chicago, but it did show some fight under a 3.75 LI.

Pressure Cooker

Rangers pitcher Matt Bush faced the most pressure in today’s game, with his very short time on the mound accumulating a 2.92 pLI.

Top Play

In the 10th inning, Nathaniel Lowe doubled to left, allowing Charlie Culberson to score for the Rangers. Lowe was credited with a .232 WPA for the play.

Top Performer

The impressive play above saw Nathaniel Lowe prevail as the top performer, with his efforts today credited with an overall .239 WPA.

Smackdown

Hardest Hit: Adolis García’s fifth inning home run flew off the bat at 109.1 mph.

Weakest Contact: In the fifth inning, Jonah Heim grounded out at a very gentle 45.2 mph.

Luckiest Hit: Brad Miller’s single in the fifth had an xBA of just .170.

Toughest Out: Jake Burger’s third inning line out had a .920 xBA.

Longest Hit: It wasn’t the hardest, but it was was the longest — Jake Burger’s fourth inning home run flew an impressive 429 feet.

Magic Number: 30

Today’s loss puts the White Sox at 27-30 for the season. That’s 30 losses, and the reality is that many of them should have been wins. This is a team with so much potential, but it’s just getting thrown away through poor management and stupid mistakes. Something needs to change, and I think we all know what it is.

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