Six Pack of Stats: White Sox 8, Twins 3

On Wednesday, the White Sox and Twins played their second-to-last game before heading off to their desired vacation spots. With an afternoon game tomorrow, I imagine bags are packed so they can head straight to the airport.

This is my final Six Pack of Stats for the season, so I’m grateful for all of you that stuck with me, even if you just wanted to vote in a poll. This season has been nothing short of abysmal, but hopefully reading our silly little articles helped you find a little joy this season.

That’s enough sappy stuff from me, though. We’ve got a game to break down.

The Starters

Lucas Giolito had one of his best starts of the season. Until the sixth inning, he had only allowed one hit and one run. He walked two in the sixth, but escaped the jam by inducing the perfect ground ball for a double play. Giolito ended his night by pitching through seven innings, only allowing two hits and two earned runs, two walks, and four strikeouts — all of which were done with only 91 pitches.

Giolito’s 91-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Josh Winder only pitched 2 ¹⁄₃ innings, with a not-so-nice pitch count of 69. Winder allowed five hits, four earned runs, one walk, and just two strikeouts during his brief start. There isn’t a whole lot to say about his performance tonight other than it was bad. Well, bad for the Twins. Then again, it’s not like it mattered, anyway.

Winder’s 69-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

Josh Winder was having a tough time in the third as is, but Eloy Jiménez’s double to left advanced José Abreu and brought Yoán Moncada home. Failing under 2.18 LI was enough to get him pulled off the mound.

Pressure Cooker

José Miranda had a bad night defensively, but was even worse at the plate. Aside from taking a hit to the mouth from a hit-by-pitch bounce, he only had one plate appearance, for a 1.55 pLI.

Top Play

The Jiménez RBI double would be exactly what the White Sox needed to win the game, and this was before the fourth inning tacked on to the lead. The double had a WPA of .156.

Top Performer

Eloy Jiménez was the big winner tonight. He only had one hit, but an RBI double and walk landed him with a WPA of .16.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Adam Engel’s double might’ve looked like it would leave the park at first, but alas. However, it did leave the bat at 111.2 mph.

Weakest contact: Luis Arráez’s third-inning single came off of his bat at 77.3 mph.

Luckiest hit: Nick Gordon’s sixth-inning single only had an xBA of .100.

Toughest out: AJ Pollock hit the ball really hard in the fifth, but it ended in a line out with an xBA of .810.

Longest hit: Jermaine Palacios’ home run beat Elvis Andrus’ by 25 feet, at 406 feet. But I’m going to show you the Andrus home run that traveled 381 feet instead. In my opinion, it’s better.

Magic Number: 1

Tomorrow is the day we close the door on the 2022 season. Cheers to all of you for sticking around, and hopefully enjoying the ride.

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