Six Pack of Stats: Rangers 8, White Sox 0

It wasn’t even close, and there’s nothing that can be said in our intro space that is going to comfort you tonight. The White Sox suffer a doleful drubbing at the hands of old friend Dane Dunning and the Texas Rangers, 8-0, and based on the effort on the field (a single infield hit for the first eight innings, among other lowlights), the game was not even that close.

You might be upset right now, but you don’t have to write this Six Pack, so simmer down.

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The Starters

We can keep saying well hey, the offense is so bad, I can’t get down on the pitching. But White Sox pitching surrendered eight runs to the Texas Rangers tonight. Worse, it is becoming apparent that Michael Kopech (quite reasonably and expectedly) is hitting a wall for the Dog Days. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to enter the season with three proven starters, one of whom would pop a knee at the conclusion of Cactus League play.

Kopech needed 74 pitches to record 10 outs, which is not ideal efficiency. He allowed four earned on five hits (including a homer), with two walks and four strikeouts. The Rangers were seeing him well, as he surrendered six hard-hit balls, while the rest of Chicago’s pitching allowed just two over the final 4 ²⁄₃ innings. Or, perhaps Texas just stopped trying.

Kopech did coax 10 swings-and-misses, so there was some deception going on. But his velo was slightly down and spin significantly down in the game. The numbers match the eye test that there may be some fatigue settling in.

Kopech’s outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Dane Dunning busted a cap in the White Sox tonight, no two bits about it. He allowed just one hit (a Yoán Moncada infield single) and a walk. But then, pfft, dude only had 103 pitches through seven, was he scared to go for the complete game shutout? Totally feeling great about the trade at the moment, although the young buck Twitter xperts have already pre-scolded me for thinking such thoughts, no chance the trade becomes a boondoggle like all the rest of Hahn’s mess, ya. Dunning, like Kopech (in twice the game play) gave up six hard-hit balls, but also whiffed six Sox. DD also had a game-high 12 swings-and-misses.

And think Dane was jacked? He movement was a mixed bag, but velo was up across the board, significantly, on all four of his pitches.

Take a look at Dunning’s full outing:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

While the game theoretically was a nothingburger in terms of tension — I mean, 8-0 — the first half of it was somewhat tight, so we did see four plays with at least 1.00 LI. As you might guess if you watched this one closely (no church for you tomorrow, you have already repented, brother or sister!), Adolis García’s two-out scalder to left with the Texas sacks packed drove in two on Kopech and pushed the Rangers lead to 3-0. It was a 2.58 LI play.

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Pressure Cooker

García is just showing off now, as his pLI for this relatively chill contest was a box-score topping 0.98 pLI.

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Top Play

Third verse, same as the first: García’s single in the third tossed .152 WPA on the barbie.

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Top Performer

Dane Dunning had big shoes to fill in following Dylan Cease’s smashing start on Friday, and fill them he did, taking today’s top honors with a .279 WPA. Tops on the Sox was Matt Foster at .008 WPA, one of just four White Sox in the win probability black tonight.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Adolis García is hogging the spotlight. No, his third inning single was only 105.6 mph, third-best of the game. It was his seventh inning double off of Tanner Banks that took the honors, at 107.0 mph.

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Weakest contact: There should be a softer-sounding label for a hit like this, but Ezequiel Duran had a line out in the fourth that floated at 52.8 mph.

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Luckiest hit: The only thing keeping Dane Dunning from the pursuit of a no-hitter tonight, beyond a pitch count that hit triple-digits in the seventh, was an excuse-me infield single from Yoán Moncada, burped out at 84.5 mph.

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Toughest out: Corey Seager moidered a Tanner Banks offering, fluffing it out to Leury at second to end the eighth. The ball was hit at just 76.6 mph but the Legend dove to make the grab despite it the hit having a 93% chance of falling fair.

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Longest hit: Andrew Vaughn fly-lined out to deep left-center in the second inning; 396 feet, but grab some bench.

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Magic Number: 9

The White Sox have not lost every game in which they have failed to score a run. They have escaped with nine scoreless ties in their 122-year history.

Tonight, however, was not one of those games.

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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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