Six Pack of Stats: Orioles 4, White Sox 0

The Chicago White Sox lost 4-0 to the Baltimore Orioles, moving to 33-35 and sitting 4 ¹⁄₂ games behind the AL Central-leading Guardians and Twins. The Orioles improve to 32-39, 20 ¹⁄₂ games out of first place in the AL East (but just 2 ¹⁄₂ games worse than the White Sox!).

The Starters

Dean Kremer took the hill for the Orioles, going 5 ²⁄₃ scoreless innings while giving up seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts.

Kremer used a four-pitch arsenal in his 93-pitch outing. He used his cutter 39 times, generating a 41% CSW rate with 10 whiffs and six called strikes. Kremer gained velocity and spin on every pitch except his curveball.

Kremer’s pitch data looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Johnny Cueto started for the White Sox, going 5 ¹⁄₃ innings and giving up three earned runs on seven hits and one walk while striking out seven batters.

Cueto used a five-pitch arsenal in his 104-pitch outing, using his sinker a game-high 31 times. He saw the most CSW success with his 4-seamer, generating three whiffs from his 10 thrown fastballs. Cueto gained velocity on every pitch except the sinker.

Cueto’s night looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

With nobody out and a runner on first in the bottom of the fifth with the Orioles ahead 2-0, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson flied out to center field.

The play had a game-high 2.15 LI. Nope, this one really wasn’t too close.

Pressure Cooker

Orioles reliever Félix Bautista accumulated a 1.39 pLI in his 1 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings of work. Bautista allowed a walk while striking out three hitters.

Top Play

With one out and a runner on third in the top of the fourth, Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman hit a two-run home run to right field to break a scoreless tie and put Baltimore ahead, 2-0. The homer added .164 WPA for the Orioles.

Top Performer

Dean Kremer amassed .276 WPA in his scoreless start for the Orioles.

Smackdown

Luckiest hit: White Sox catcher Seby Zavala doubled to left field with the bases empty and one out in the bottom of the second. Hit 81.4 mph, the double had a .080 xBA.

Toughest out: With nobody on and one out in the bottom of the sixth and the Orioles leading 3-0, White Sox designated hitter José Abreu barreled a fly ball to right-center field that was tracked down by Baltimore’s Cedric Mullins. The fly ball had a .910 xBA and was one of two barrel outs for the White Sox (AJ Pollock).

Hardest hit: Orioles left fielder Anthony Santander hit a 107.6 mph ground out to end the top of the third.

Weakest contact: White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson’s 68.2 mph ground ball single to lead off the bottom of the third had the game’s slowest exit velocity.

Longest hit: White Sox left fielder AJ Pollock barreled a fly ball to center field that also found its way into Cedric Mullins’ glove. The 103.4 mph, .830 xBA fly out traveled 403 feet, a foot further than Rutschman’s home run.

Magic Number: 2

This is the second time this season the White Sox have been shut out in a game. The other shutout was on April 26 in a 6-0 loss in Chicago against the Royals.

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