Six Pack of Stats: Diamondbacks 7, White Sox 2

The White Sox lost their first game back home, in impressive fashion. The Diamondbacks bit early and caught nearly every warning track hit. I don’t know what to say about this team anymore, so A Little Less Conversation and a little more stats.

The Starters

Johnny Cueto was due for a bad start, and unfortunately, that bad start came tonight. Cueto was All Shook Up, giving up six runs in the second, and another in the third. He pitched for five innings, allowing five hits, two walks and seven earned runs, while striking out five. His velocity was down, and his ERA swelled to 2.98.

Cueto’s 90-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Tommy Henry didn’t allow a hit until the third inning, fanned three, walked three, and only allowed one run on four hits. Such a night for the young Diamondbacks pitcher. His fastball dominated the Sox, with 33% called strikes + whiffs.

Henry’s 86-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

The second inning was brutal for our favorite cowboy. Johnny Cueto had the bases loaded when Josh Rojas smacked a double to left field, allowing Daulton Varsho, Jordan Luplow, and Geraldo Perdomo to score. The LI tipped the scales at 2.66.

Pressure Cooker

Johnny Cueto took the most heat with his disappointing start. In a low-pressure, blowout game, Cueto’s .070 pLI led the way.

Top Play

Josh Rojas’ double that brought in three runs would put the Diamondbacks on the best track to win, and maintain a lead all game. Rojas’ WPA was .216 for the double.

Top Performer

Josh Rojas wears the crown, for his three RBIs and a WPA of .019.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: AJ Pollock’s ninth-inning home run didn’t quite provide the much-needed runs, but he hit it pretty hard, at 108.7 mph.

Weakest contact: In his big league debut, Carlos Pérez was notable in a way, with his ninth-inning fly out leaving the bat at 71.2 mph.

Luckiest hit: Eloy Jiménez’s sixth-inning single got him pulled out of the game soon after, as he showed pain running to first, but I guess it was still lucky because the xBA was only .090.

Toughest out: José Abreu’s unfortunate fifth-inning line out not only hurt the team but was possibly the nail in the coffin for this game. The xBA was .620, with runners in scoring position.

Longest hit: AJ Pollock eked out a win on this by exactly one foot. His home run traveled 411 feet, whereas Emmanuel Rivera’s only traveled 410.

Magic Number: 10

I’ll just leave this here.

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