Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 2, Rockies 1

The White Sox, with a stellar road record, faced the great at-home Rockies in Denver for the first time in several years. Despite some closing drama from Liam Hendriks, the White Sox pulled out all the stops on defense to hold the Rockies to one run.

The Starters

Michael Kopech started off rocky, as usual, but was able to escape the jams he created for himself and eventually correct himself. He made it through 5 ¹⁄₃ innings without allowing the Rockies any runs. He was able to strike out four while only allowing six hits, and his ability to serve up ground outs for double plays was immaculate. While the box score doesn’t look great, it was a quality start for Kopech given the difficulty of pitching at Coors Field.

Kopech’s 91-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Germán Márquez seemed to be back in All-Star shape, after a rough first half of the 2022 season. He only allowed one earned run, and struck out six in the six innings he pitched. He only walked one and allowed seven hits. He threw his fastball quite a bit, as it was successful against Sox hitters — especially José Abreu.

Márquez’s 97-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

Charlie Blackmon grounding out to shortstop in the bottom of the ninth had every Sox fan letting out the loudest exhale ever. The play was stressful for Liam Hendriks and Blackmon, with the game on the line for both teams. The LI for the play was 3.90.

Pressure Cooker

In the least unsurprising stat of the night, Liam Hendriks faced the most pressure, especially after giving up a leadoff home run in the ninth to cut the lead in half. He made it through, but I imagine not without a little cussing. Hendriks’ pLI was 3.02.

Top Play

Ryan McMahon’s home run actually had the highest WPA at .125. The game appeared to be slipping away from the White Sox at that point, but was thankfully saved by an expletive-spewing Liam.

Top Performer

For as rocky as he seemed, Michael Kopech kept the Sox in the game by not allowing a single run during his time on the mound. Kopech’s WPA was .323.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Yasmani Grandal excelled this evening, smacking baseballs with force. His fourth-inning single was smoked at 110.2 mph.

Weakest contact: Sam Hilliard’s second-inning single was clocked at just 53.5 mph.

Luckiest hit: Randal Grichuk took advantage of Michael Kopech in the fourth inning when he got a single with an xBA of just .080.

Toughest out: AJ Pollock had a relatively good game tonight despite having the toughest out, in the sixth inning. His line out had an xBA of .540.

Longest hit: You would think it was the home run from Ryan McMahon, right? Wrong! AJ Pollock’s second-inning double beat it by four feet, at 386.

Magic Number: 4

The White Sox pulled off a season-high four double plays, which was a huge help in this low-scoring game.

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