Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 11, Pirates 5

Hoist the flag — but for the White Sox!

After an embarrassing loss to the Pirates yesterday, the White Sox looked sharp again and snapped a four-game win streak for the Bucs. The bats were hot all night, and the bullpen seemed competent for a change. Yasmani Grandal even looked fast, as he hustled his way to two hits. There was so much offense tonight, let’s not waste any more time on this opening paragraph.

The Starter

Old friend alert! Vince Velasquez took the mound tonight for the Pirates. At first, he looked sharp. But a few pitches in, Vinny Velo seemed to still be playing for the White Sox. Allowing hits, and just being bad overall — the White Sox way. Velasquez labored with 75 pitches through 2 2⁄3 innings and appeared to twist his ankle before coming out of the game. In that short time, he allowed six hits, five earned runs, walked four, and only accumulated one strikeout.

Here’s the pitch mix, from Baseball Theater:

Velasquez’s 75 pitches looked like this:

Pressure Play

What do we love? Wild pitch offense! Vinny Velo didn’t seem to like it, though. Gavin Sheets advanced to second, Andrew Vaughn to third, and Andrew Benintendi scored on that wild pitch from Velasquez. The LI for the play tipped the scales at 2.76.

Pressure Cooker

Joe Kelly was able to escape a jam previously set and kept the Pirates off the board. His pLI was 1.77 for the two batters he faced.

Top Play

Yasmani Grandal’s beautiful third-inning single brought Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets home and garnered a .129 WPA.

Top Performer

Carlos Santana ekes out a win at .19 WPA, just barely passing Andrew Benintendi at .18.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Oneil Cruz’s third-inning single had some real power, coming off the bat at 113.3 mph.

Weakest contact: Andrew Benintendi somehow got an RBI single in the third as well, but only with a hit at 58.7 mph.

Luckiest hit: Gavin Sheets’ lightly-tapped single in the fifth only had a .140 xBA after coming off the bat at just 76.6 mph.

Toughest out: Ji-man Choi’s third inning didn’t go so well. He lined out despite a .950 xBA.

Longest hit: Rodolfo Castro took the starting pitcher deep in the sixth with a double that traveled 391 feet and bounced off of the wall.

Magic Number: 2

Unrelated to the game, but how good do you have to be to have TWO statues built in your honor? Big congrats to the Big Hurt on his statue at Auburn University.

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