Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 7, Giants 3

@FanGraphs

The White Sox tie the series with the Giants in a fun, and not-so-stressful way! Can we pretend this was the Home Opener? Monday? We don’t know her.

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The Starters

Dylan Cease lacked command today, with five walks in five innings pitched. He also struggled with velocity, with his fastball only up to 96.8 mph. However, those walks never turned into runs, and he only allowed two hits and one earned. The eight strikeouts, though? A thing of beauty. The Opening Day magic was sadly not around today, but I still trust Cease and consider him to be the ace.

(Also, apparently Cease was sick today? Even more impressive, then.)

Here are Cease’s pitch visuals, from Baseball Theater:

Cease’s 99-pitch outing looked like this:

Logan Webb took the mound for the Giants. Like Cease, Webb struggled with velocity. He allowed nine hits, four earned runs, and four strikeouts. No walks, though! In fact, the White Sox didn’t get a walk until the bottom of the sixth.

Webb’s 81-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Theater

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Pressure Play

The third inning got away from Dylan Cease for just a second. The bases were loaded with two outs. Then Mike Yastrzemski struck out looking. The LI was 3.46.

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Pressure Cooker

Reynaldo López faced a ton of pressure as he worked to escape a bases-loaded jam. He was quite successful despite a 2.48 pLI.

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Top Play

Andrew Vaughn doubled to right, bringing Luis Robert Jr. home, and advancing Andrew Benintendi. This would give the White Sox enough leverage against the Giants with a .100 WPA.

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Top Performer

Dylan Cease carried the team today by shutting the Giants down early. His WPA was 0.19.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Bryce Johnson’s single in the seventh came off the bat at 104.8 mph.

Weakest contact: Luis Robert Jr.’s sixth-inning single was lightly tapped, at 77.7 mph.

Luckiest hit: Andrew Benintendi got lucky in the seventh with his single. The hit only had an .070 xBA.

Toughest out: However, Andrew Benintendi’s third-inning ground out had high hopes with a .630 xBA. Alas, it was enough.

Longest hit: Wilmer Flores’ fly out traveled 368 feet, but right behind him was J.D. Davis with a 365-foot home run.

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Magic Number: 2,000

Welcome to the 2,000 Hit Club, Elvis Andrus!

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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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