Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 3, Tigers 0

FanGraphs

The White Sox (24-35) stole the opener against the Tigers (26-29), kicking off June the right way. Granted, they are still more than seven games out of first in the AL Central, but who’s counting? This game was pretty brutal to watch through the first five innings, and there was a point where I genuinely thought the South Siders were going to be no-hit, but alas, they fooled me this time. A win is a win, and we will take anything we can get right now!

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The Starters

Reese Olson made his MLB debut Friday night, and what a first outing it was. He held a no-hitter through five innings, until the hot bat of Romy González broke it up to start the sixth inning. Olson went with a five-pitch arsenal, relying mostly on his slider, which he threw 34% of the time at a pretty solid 40% CSW. Olson might not have used his changeup much (only 13 times), but it was wildly effective (54% CSW), missing bats all over the place. He was responsible for two earned runs, giving up two hits, walking one, and striking out six. Not bad at all.

Here are Olson’s pitch visuals from Baseball Theater:

Olson’s 89-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Andy Ibañez grounded into a 3.37 LI fielder’s choice with runners on first and second, creating an even worse jam for Reynaldo López in the seventh.

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Pressure Cooker

Reynaldo López faced the most pressure today (2.47 pLI), but was able to overcome and work his way out of his mess in the seventh.

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Top Play

Tim Anderson’s sixth-inning base hit to advance Romy González to third carried a .132 WPA. Romy would end up scoring the first run of the game on the next at-bat.

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Our Top Performer

Tim Anderson’s two-hit night put the White Sox in the position they needed to win the game by setting up the first run, scoring shortly after that, and driving in the third and final run himself in the seventh. All that added up to .160 WPA today.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: Romy González’s single to break up the no-hit bid in the sixth left the bat at 109.9 mph.

Weakest contact: Eric Haase’s ground out in the eighth left the bat at just 46.8 mph.

Luckiest hit: Tim Anderson’s RBI double in the seventh had a .220 xBA.

Toughest out: Romy González robbed Nick Maton of a base hit in the sixth, making a beautiful sliding play on a .600 xBA liner to end the inning.

Longest hit: Miguel Cabrera hit a DEEP, 403-foot ... single ... off of the center-field wall in the fifth.

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Magic Number: 6

We kicked off the sixth month of the year with the White Sox, naturally, not getting a hit until the sixth inning. Both teams put up six hits today, and ReyLo and Joe Kelly each earned their sixth hold in their one-hit outings, leading to today’s win.

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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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