Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 2, Marlins 1

FanGraphs

This game shaped up as a pitchers’ duel, and a pitchers’ duel it delivered, assisted by a White Sox offense that simply swallowed its good fortune (nine hits to Miami’s four, two Marlins errors) by going 1-for-10 with RISP through eight innings. But when the game is tied, things advance to just a six-outs contest, and the White Sox came through late, with Luis Robert Jr. tapping in Elvis Andrus for the game-winner.

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The Starters

Dylan Cease employed a three-pitch mix over six innings tonight, getting the job done by allowing just a Joey Wendle home run to touch him for damage. No decision for Dylan, but the White Sox will take this effort every time; perhaps 15.8 pitches per inning isn’t exactly the efficiency we want to see from him, but as a high-K pitcher it seems a big ask from Cease. Burying the lede, just two walks over six innings is a real plus for Cease.

Oh and hey, was he throwing a knuckleball? He wasted a couple of low-spin, low-velo mega-changeups to lefties tonight; 77.3 mph coming from Dylan, ever, is sorta nuts.

Here’s a couple of animations depicting Dylan’s day:

And the full breakdown of the 93 pitches from Cease on Friday:

Baseball Savant

Rookie Eury Pérez has been butter in his MLB career so far, and on this night little slowed him down against the White Sox. Miami is being rightfully protective of the kid, giving him just five innings and 82 pitches, a game roughly equivalent in efficiency to Cease (Pérez was a smidge better). The two pitchers’ lines were pretty similar, in fact, with both men touched by homers for the only damage inflicted. Pérez, however, wasn’t fooling hitters as well as Dylan, as evidenced by a modest 28% CSW. On the flip side, Pérez suffered slightly less hard contact, with just four “hard hits” to Cease’s five.

Here are some Pérez visuals:

And the full breakdown of Pérez’s 82-pitch evening:

Baseball Savant

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Pressure Play

Here’s how I’ll know you are a regular reader of the Six Pack: Did you guess this one? Yep, Luis Robert Jr.’s game-winning single was under 4.31 LI — the tensest moment of a sweaty game.

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Pressure Cooker

Dylan Floro took on 3.10 pLI in the ninth, and aside from a punch-out of Tim Anderson, wilted in the Marlins’ loss. Highest game pressure for the White Sox? Yup, Robert, 2.02.

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Top Play

Luis Robert Jr. won the game with a .294 WPA single — bet you guessed that one, too.

[I would like to point out that, rather hilariously, immediately after the game the video clip MLB is labeling as Robert’s game-winner is in fact his swing-and-miss on the first pitch of his at-bat in the ninth. Do you want to see that? Nah. Sorry for the lack of celebration footage.]

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Top Performer

Luis Robert Jr. and your .240 WPA, have a day. La Pantera has had more impressive hits, but few that have sayonara’d a game. Cease was a relatively close second, at .212 WPA.

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Smackdown

Hardest hit: You do not see this often, and despite doing few of these Six Packs this season I’ll venture no White Sox hitter has had as unlucky a day as Andrew Vaughn did. Vaughn not only topped the charts with the hardest-hit ball of the night as a 107.6 mph GIDP in the seventh inning, he also had the fifth hardest hit of the game — another out, a liner in the third. That’s a double hang wif’ ’em AV.

Weakest contact: It’s been a popular notion to get Jake Burger on the field starting every game, but he had a rough Friday night, with three Ks and the only contact made being the weakest of the game, a 55.1 mph pop out to second base in the eighth inning.

Luckiest hit: Elvis Andrus wasn’t just a hero in the ninth inning, scoring the game-winner. He was a rascal in the third, when his cotton candy-tapper to third base — an easy ground out 95.0% of the time — turned into an effective double, as a throwing error send Elvis to second base on his infield hit.

He also had this dandy bail-out of Vaughn in the sixth:

Toughest out: Bryan De La Cruz barely edged Vaughn’s line out (.600 xBA) with a line out of his own, a .620 xBA shot that was swallowed by a perfectly-positioned Andrew Benintendi in left field.

Longest hit: The revenge of Bryan De La Cruz occurred in his next at-bat, when he doubled 370 feet to right-center, outpacing the two homers in the game.

Top White Sox distance was Yasmani Grandal’s solo shot in the second.

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Magic Number: 6

The White Sox have six walk-off wins this season, more than any other MLB team. A crazy 20.7% of all their wins have been in this fashion.

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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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