Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 8, Guardians 3

FanGraphs

The White Sox and Guardians met for the first time this season, both coming in with less-than-desirable starts to the season. The first few innings were scoreless, with Lance Lynn and Shane Bieber dueling. But the star of tonight’s game, Luis Robert Jr., started an early rally on the South Side that would turn the Guardians upside-down.

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The Starters

Lance Lynn went from washed to hanging the Guardians out to dry in a dominating performance all the way into the eighth. While his ERA is a little beastly at 6.66 now, Lynn gave the Guardians hell all night, only allowing one earned run. The other two runs were due to poor defense, so I can’t even fault him for that. His final line was 7 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, and 0 HR.

Lynn’s 97-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

The unhittable Shane Bieber is a thing of the past, at least when the White Sox bats wake up. Before tonight, Shane Bieber hadn’t given up more than three runs in a game; the White Sox scored six off him in the fifth inning alone. Bieber was dealing through four, keeping the game scoreless. His final line, however, was 4.2 IP, 12 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, and 2 HR.

Beiber’s 88-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Luis Robert Jr. hit a fly out to right but was able to advance Hanser Alberto to third with one out in the third inning on a 2.17 LI play.

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Pressure Cooker

Shane Bieber’s pLI went up to 1.06 after giving up quite a few runs in the fifth.

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Top Play

Gavin Sheets three-run homer in the fifth with a .220 WPA brought Yoán Moncada and Andrew Vaughn home and put the Sox up by three, helping to chase Bieber off of the mound.

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Top Performer

Lynn’s dazzling performance on the mound was not only a much-needed bounce-back but also gave him a .262 WPA.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: In a pitchers’ duel that turned into a slugfest, there were 17 exit velocities of more than 100 mph, and the top at 111.6 mph was actually a line out from Josh Bell. Trailing right behind was Yasmani Grandal’s fourth-inning single at 108.1 mph, and Robert Jr.’s home run at 108.

Weakest contact: Brayan Rocchio’s sixth-inning single slid off the bat at 53.9 mph.

Luckiest hit: That lightly-tapped single from Rocchio only had a .100 xBA.

Toughest out: Josh Bell’s extremely hard-hit liner had an .890 xBA.

Longest hit: It was home run city, with two huge blasts. Robert Jr.’s was the longest, at 418 feet, followed closely by Sheets at 413.

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Magic Number: Infinity

I would like to take this time to share some stats brought to you by Chris Kamka.

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Glossary

CSW called strikes plus whiffs
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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