Six Pack of Stats: Tigers 3, White Sox 2

The White Sox head to Detroit to face the Tigers. Detroit has been eliminated from playoff contention, but the Sox are still battling for a spot thanks to getting hot as soon as Miguel Cairo took over. Despite the normally-awful offense for the Motor City Kitties, they seem to perform well against the White Sox — especially Lucas Giolito. Let’s see what happens, as two mediocre pitchers go against each other in a must-win game for Chicago.

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The Starters

Lucas Giolito threw 28 pitches in the first inning. His fastball velocity has dropped down to the low 90s and high 80s. Unfortunately, it’s one of his best and most-used pitches. After 96 pitches in 4 ²⁄₃ innings with three walks, four hits, and a bit of a jam, Giolito was pulled and Jimmy Lambert took over.

Giolito’s 96-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Matt Manning threw seven shutout innings. Yes, you read that right. Manning only allowed three hits and struck out five. No walks, no earned runs, just dismantling nearly every hitter, Elvis Andrus excluded. He did all that in only 87 pitches, and with a great fastball.

Manning’s 87-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

You don’t see this one every day! Defensive indifference with one out and runners on the corners in the 10th allowed Willi Castro to advance to second base. Liam Hendriks suddenly had ducks on the pond in extras — and a 5.40 LI.

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Pressure Cooker

Liam Hendriks certainly faced the most pressure, as allowed the Tigers to walk it off. His pLI was 3.64. Hey, at least the run wasn’t earned!

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Top Play

Despite the losing effort, José Abreu’s double to left in the eighth inning had the highest WPA at .345. Abreu’s double allowed Elvis Andrus to advance and Josh Harrison to score.

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Top Performer

Matt Manning did the damn thing. What thing, you ask? Well, he shut the White Sox out through seven innings, for a .424 WPA.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: José Abreu’s beautiful eighth-inning double was launched off the bat at 108.1 mph.

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Weakest contact: There was actually a lot of weak contact in this boring game, but Spencer Torkelson managed to get to first after hitting the ball at 82 mph.

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Luckiest hit: Thanks to players not catching the ball, Eloy Jiménez managed to get a double in the seventh despite his xBA only being .010.

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Toughest out: Yasmani Grandal had a chance to keep the White Sox in the game. Instead, it was a ninth-inning line out. His xBA was .710.

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Longest hit: Javier Báez hit a triple in the fifth that traveled 395 feet.

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Magic Number: 2

In what might be the only fun part of this pathetic game, Joe Kelly managed to turn two in one of the more impressive plays I’ve seen in a while.

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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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