Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 5, Giants 3

The Chicago White Sox defeated the San Francisco Giants 5-3 to clinch the series victory at Oracle Park. The Sox move to 37-39, 5 ¹⁄₂ games back of the Twins for first in the AL Central. The Giants are now 40-36, eight games back of the Dodgers for first in the NL West.

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The Starters

June’s AL Pitcher of the Month Dylan Cease started for the White Sox. Cease went five innings, giving up one earned run on four hits and three walks while striking out four.

Cease used a four-pitch arsenal in his 104-pitch outing. He threw his sinker 52 times, generating a 56% whiff rate and 44% CSW rate on the pitch. Cease lost vertical break on all four pitches but saw an increase in velocity on all four.

Here’s Cease’s breakdown:

Baseball Savant

Logan Webb started for the Giants. Webb went six innings, giving up three earned runs on six hits and a walk while striking out five.

Webb used a four-pitch arsenal in his 101-pitch outing. He used his sinker 40% of the time. Webb saw the most CSW success with his slider, generating a 41% CSW rate from his 32 sliders (53% whiff rate).

Webb’s start looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

With the bases loaded and one out in the top of the fourth with the Giants leading, 1-0, White Sox right fielder Gavin Sheets lined a double to left field to put Chicago ahead, 2-1.

The at-bat had an LI of 3.49.

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Pressure Cooker

Sheets faced the most total pressure in today’s game, with a 1.73 pLI.

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Top Play

The White Sox added .218 WPA on Sheets’ two-run double.

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Top Performer

Guess who.

Sheets went 2-for-3 from the plate to amass .273 WPA.

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Smackdown

Luckiest hit: Speaking of luck, we have a tie!

Leading off the top of the fourth, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson hit a 70.3 mph ground ball single to third.

With nobody out, one on in the top of the sixth, Gavin Sheets hit his second double of the game on a grounder to right field.

Both plays had .170 xBA.

Toughest out: Leading off the top of the ninth, Friday hero Leury García hit a 67.6 mph, .930 xBA line out to second base.

The inning was bookended with tough outs. Giants right fielder Lamont Wade Jr. robbed Tim Anderson of his third hit of the game to end the inning, catching this 101.3 mph, .700 xBA barrel at the wall.

Hardest hit: After Wade hit a leadoff home run off of Cease to open the game, Giants left fielder Joc Pederson mashed a 106.1 double to right field.

Weakest contact: With two on and nobody out in the top of the fourth, White Sox center fielder Luis Robert grounded out to the catcher. The 42.0 mph dribbler had the game’s slowest exit velo.

Longest hit: The game’s only home run traveled the furthest. Lamont Wade Jr.’s 105.9 mph barrel leadoff shot to center field went 424 feet.

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Magic Number: 6

Before this series, the White Sox had gone six years without winning a series in California. Chicago opened the 2016 season by winning three of four on the other side of the bridge at Oakland Coliseum.

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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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