Six Pack of Stats: Diamondbacks 3, White Sox 2

The Chicago White Sox rallied late, but so did the Arizona Diamondbacks for the weekend sweep.

The Starters

Dylan Cease had himself a day today! He became the second starting pitcher all season for the White Sox to record an out in the eighth inning. It was also the longest outing for Cease’s career. Through his eight innings of work, he allowed two hits and two runs — two solo home runs. He walked one and struck out eight batters.

His 103-pitch afternoon went down like this:

Baseball Savant

Zach Davies was mostly cruising throughout the game. Through five innings of work, he sprinkled in three hits and struck out five in a scoreless effort. However, the sixth inning caused some trouble. He allowed a sacrifice fly to tie the game at one, and AJ Pollock locked in the go-ahead RBI single off of Davies that ricocheted to the right side of the infield — against the shift.

Davies’ 85 pitches looked like this:

FanGraphs

Pressure Play

With runners on first and second and down a run in the ninth, Tony La Russa brought in Leury García as a pinch hitter. After just missing a game-winning double down the left-field line, Leury struck out for a 7.13 LI play.

Pressure Cooker

Ian Kennedy worked a 4.91 pLI in his successful save attempt.

Top Play

Jake McCarthy’s two-out RBI double for the 3-2 lead attributed a .329 WPA.

Top Performer

Jake McCarthy’s overall .282 WPA takes the cake for today’s top performer.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Romy González, in the leadoff spot, barreled a ball at 108.7 mph in the seventh inning, but it ended up being a part in a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. However, Christian Walker’s 110.6 mph line out in the ninth edges out Romy overall.

Weakest contact: In the fourth inning, AJ Pollock weakly grounded out at 56.7 mph.

Luckiest hit: Josh Harrison’s single in the third had an xBA of .270, slightly edging out AJ Pollock’s single off of Davies at an xBA of .280.

Toughest out: Romy Gonzalez’s double-play ball is usually a hit 61% of the time, rather than two outs, but once again, Walker edges him out with his .790 xBA from his ninth-inning line out.

Longest hit: Stone Garrett launched a home run 429 feet in the second inning.

Magic Number: 5.5

The White Sox are 5.5 games in back of the Cleveland Guardians for first place in the AL Central.

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