Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 3, Phillies 0 (Nightcap)

@FanGraphs

The White Sox split the doubleheader with the Phillies this evening in front of a nearly empty ballpark. But hey, Lucas Giolito seems to do his best work in an empty ballpark, right? Regardless, Giolito looked great, Jake Burger continued to hit with power, and Romy González had some pretty fantastic catches.

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The Starters

Lucas Giolito looked great on the mound tonight. He was able to locate his fastball and change his speeds with ease while keeping the Phillies to zero hits in six innings. He allowed just one walk and one hit batsman, striking out seven. While Giolito’s pitch count was high, he still dazzled against the Phillies, even after facing their best hitters for a third time.

Giolito’s 102-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

On paper, Bailey Falter didn’t look great. But in reality, the only real struggle he had was at the start of the game, being charged with three earned runs. After that, Falter kept the White Sox from scoring for the next six innings. Not that it’s always hard to do, but Falter remained efficient with his subpar pitching.

Falter’s 98-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Bailey Falter was up against the wall early in the game when he allowed a three-run home run with 1.93 LI.

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Pressure Cooker

Pinch-hitter Josh Harrison struck out during what could’ve been a comeback for the Phillies in the eighth, leaving him empty on game-high 1.19 pLI stress.

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Top Play

Did you guess Jake Burger’s home run? Because you’d be right! Burger’s WPA was .216.

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Top Performer

Lucas Giolito gets the gold star tonight for throwing six hitless innings of baseball to garner a .268 WPA.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Jake Burger was smashing balls left and right, but his first-inning, three-run home run was the second hardest-hit ball of 2023, exiting at 118.2 mph.

Weakest contact: Elvis Andrus’ seventh-inning single peaked at 67.5 mph.

Luckiest hit: Eloy Jiménez’s first-inning single looked weak with a .300 xBA.

Toughest out: The wind didn’t help Luis Robert Jr. this evening. His third-inning, almost home run had a .940 xBA but was gloved up against the wall.

Longest hit: Jake Burger gets top honors with his homer in the first. The ball traveled 417 feet.

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Magic Number: 1

The White Sox ALMOST had a combined no-hitter. Aaron Bummer foiled the plan by allowing a hit, but still — that’s pretty exciting for a team, and especially the bullpen, which has been abysmal lately. And this great game happened to fall on a certain anniversary.

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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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