Six Pack of Stats: Tigers 2, White Sox 1

The Detroit Tigers defeated the Chicago White Sox, 2-1, in the series opener at Guaranteed Rate Field. Detroit moves to 34-47, 11 games behind the AL Central-leading Twins. The White Sox fall to 39-41, six games out of first.

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The Starters

Beau Brieske started for the Tigers. Brieske went 6 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings, allowing two hits and a walk while striking out four.

Brieske used a five-pitch arsenal in his 93-pitch outing. He used his slider 29 times. Brieske saw the most CSW success with his 4-seamer (minimum five pitches), generating two whiffs and four called strikes for a 27% CSW rate. He gained spin on all five pitches.

Brieske’s start looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Dylan Cease started for the White Sox, going six innings and giving up one earned run on three hits and three walks while striking out eight.

Cease used a four-pitch arsenal in his 101-pitch outing. He threw 46 sliders, generating a 46% whiff rate. Cease saw the most CSW success with his changeup, generating a whiff and two called strikes from his five tosses. He gained 4.1 mph on the pitch while gaining spin on his entire arsenal.

Here’s Cease’s breakdown:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

The game’s final out was the highest-leverage situation.

With two on, two out and the Tigers leading, 2-1, in the bottom of the ninth, White Sox left fielder Eloy Jiménez grounded out to short to end the game.

The play had 8.18 LI in a half-inning that had the game’s three highest leverage plays.

I mean, seriously, look at the red on the right of the leverage index up top!

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Pressure Cooker

Tigers reliever Gregory Soto had 4.00 pLI from pitching the bottom of the ninth for the save. Soto gave up an earned run on two hits and a walk before securing the final two outs.

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Top Play

With one out and runners on first and second in the bottom of the ninth, White Sox center fielder Luis Robert hit an RBI double to right field to get the White Sox on the board and cut the Tigers lead to 2-1.

His first and only hit of the game, Robert added .343 WPA for the White Sox with the two-bagger.

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Top Performer

Brieske, who took a no-hitter into the fifth inning, had a game-high .365 WPA in his scoreless start for the Tigers.

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Smackdown

Luckiest hit: Robert’s 74.0 mph double had a .210 xBA.

Toughest out: With a runner on and two outs in a scoreless tie, Tigers second baseman Jonathan Schoop made a leaping catch to end the third inning and rob White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson of a base hit. The 104.2 mph line out had a .930 xBA.

Hardest hit: With two outs and a runner on second in the top of the ninth, Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson lined an RBI single to left to double Detroit’s lead. Torkelson’s single was hit at 108.7 mph.

Weakest contact: With one out, nobody on in the bottom of the fourth, Luis Robert hit a 38.6 mph ground out the pitcher.

Longest hit: Leading off the top of the fourth, Tigers shortstop Javier Báez homered to left field to break a scoreless tie. The 101.2 mph, .760 xBA barrel traveled 383 feet.

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Magic Number: 8.18

Eloy Jiménez’ game-ending ground out had an LI of 8.18, in an extremely high-leverage bottom of the ninth.

For comparison, Tony Womack’s bottom-of-the-ninth, game-tying double off of Mariano Rivera in game seven of the 2001 World Series had a mere 7.21 LI.

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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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