Six Pack of Stats: Guardians 7, White Sox 4 (opener)

In the opener of the doubleheader, the White Sox choked after tying the Guardians late. Sloppy defense and a late comeback would ultimately doom the Sox, so let’s hope the nightcap is more tolerable.

The Starters

Johnny Cueto had a quality start, even if the box score was a little messy. He had eight hits and three earned runs with only one walk. No strikeouts, but our workhorse went deep for seven innings to save the bullpen arms on a doubleheader day.

Cueto’s 93-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Triston McKenzie historically has not been great against the White Sox, but history didn’t repeat itself today. His first inning consisted of just six pitches. McKenzie was perfect through three, but the second Andrew Vaughn got on base via E1, the wheels started falling off. With two outs, the White Sox had two on base, and McKenzie walked Gavin Sheets to load the bases and bring his pitch count up. He finished the day with 5 ²⁄₃ innings under his belt, charged with only one earned run, four hits, two walks, and four strikeouts.

McKenzie’s 94-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

With bases loaded and two outs, Gavin Sheets had a chance to extend the seventh inning and drive in at least one run. He struck out swinging instead. The LI for the play was a chart-topping 4.68.

Pressure Cooker

There were a lot of high-stakes moments in this game, with several players facing a lot of pressure. The top spot belongs to Trevor Stephan. He got the win, but facing the Sox lineup once the bats started to heat up in the seventh saw Chicago tie the game. Stephan’s pLI was 2.71.

Top Play

Andrew Vaughn put the White Sox in a position to win today with a .223 WPA single to center, bringing Moncada home to tie the game, 4-4.

Top Performer

Nolan Jones eked out a win against Steven Kwan but was ultimately the top performer today with two hits, two runs, one walk, and stellar defense. His WPA was .294.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Nolan Jones had a sixth-inning single that left the bat at 107.9 mph.

Weakest contact: With a very light tap, Andrés Giménez hit a single at just 30.7 mph.

Luckiest hit: Josh Harrison’s fourth-inning single had a very small chance, with an xBA of just .070.

Toughest out: José Ramírez hit a sacrifice fly in the ninth that had an xBA of .660.

Longest hit: Yoán Moncada’s seventh-inning double went farthest in a game with zero home runs. The ball traveled 364 feet.

Magic Number: 7

In his last seven games, Gavin Sheets has been 1-for-24 with no RBIs and 23 left on base.

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