Six Pack of Stats: Mariners 5, White Sox 1

FanGraphs

The White Sox Tungsten Arm O’Doyle’d themselves against the Mariners in the rubber match of their three-game set in the PNW, watching Lance Lynn tie a White Sox all-time record with 16 strikeouts and somehow making it feel as if the game was never even close, ultimately losing, 5-1, when the home side was able to pull away with a game-breaking triple in the ninth. Andrew Benintendi drove in Chicago’s only run on a single in the fifth inning. Lynn’s brilliance wasn’t enough — when is one player’s brilliance ever enough for these White Sox? — but the numbers behind it are pretty interesting.

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The Starters

Lance Lynn had one of his finest starts in a White Sox uniform, and a record-tying one, as you’ve already heard. In addition to his 16 strikeouts, which are the most in any game for a pitcher this season, the 33 swings-and-misses he generated is a mark reached by just four other pitchers since 2008, when we started tracking these things. It’s handily the most swings-and-misses by a Sox pitcher in that period, breaking Lucas Giolito’s record of 30, reached during his dominant no-hitter in August 2020:

Baseball Savant

No longer attempting to rely purely on his trio of fastballs, Lynn mixed it up quite a bit, finishing with one of his most even pitch mixes of the year, and Mariners hitters specifically could not do anything at all with his curveball, which ran an absurd 60% CSW on 20 pitches. He threw it nearly 1.5 mph harder than it’s typically been this year, despite Lynn having slightly lower velocity on the day as a whole. The curve also became much “shorter,” so to speak, with nearly six fewer inches of drop than its average on the year. Perhaps relatedly, he seemed to move it around (and below) the strike zone with an ease that I don’t think I’ve ever seen out of it. Lynn also moved the velocity of his cutter up and down, helping keep hitters off of his declining four-seamer and sinker, and unlike most of the other hitters he’s faced this year, the Mariners were completely unable to capitalize on Lynn’s mistakes. A wonderful performance, unfortunately for naught due to the ineptitude of the Sox offense and Reynaldo López’s inability to shut the door.

Here’s the breakdown of Lynn’s 114 pitches:

Baseball Savant

As the final score indicated, the Sox offense wasn’t able to handle Bryce Miller’s fastball, which has a combination of spin rate, spin direction, and release point that creates some of the purest “rise” of any four-seamer in the game. The 2600 rpm you see in the box below is a special number. It’s also 95-97 mph. That’s why Miller can throw it 60% of the time — which is actually less frequently than his season average — with a mediocre slider and still avoid getting hurt. Miller made it through seven innings, allowing just four hits and a single alongside six strikeouts.

Here’s what his 85 pitches looked like in the numbers:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

The pressure peaked today with no outs and one on in the top of the sixth inning, when Zach Remillard lined out to third with a 2.53 LI.

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Pressure Cooker

Elvis Andrus saw the most cumulative pressure of any player today, finishing with a 1.35 pLI.

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Top Play

The deadliest play of the day was the one that opened the scoring. Julio Rodríguez’s two-out, two-run double in the third inning carried a game-high .258 WPA:

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Top Performer

For the game as a whole, however, the flowers go to Rodríguez’s teammate Bryce Miller, whose seven innings of one-run ball gave him a .296 WPA on the day.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: The Jarred Kelenic triple that broke the game open also left the bat at 107.8 mph, highest of the game:

Weakest contact: At 63.5 mph, Andrew Vaughn’s second-inning infield tapper was the weakest non-bunt contact of the game.

Luckiest hit: The grounder in the hole that allowed Yasmani Grandal to reach base in the ninth inning had a game-low .270 xBA.

Toughest out: The single was nice, but I don’t think it makes up for the 107 mph shot in the gap that Grandal ripped earlier in the game — .710 xBA — that Teoscar Hernández was positioned perfectly for.

Longest hit: Luis Robert Jr. missed a dinger by mere feet in the ninth, hitting the yellow line at the top of the wall, 386 feet from home.

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Magic Number: 16

It’s a shame the 2023 White Sox are what they are, because 16 strikeouts in a game isn’t something we’re likely to see again for a long time — unless the Sox are on the receiving end of it.

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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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