Six Pack of Stats: Astros 5, White Sox 1
Can I invoice Jerry Reinsdorf for my therapy bill?
The White Sox were back home to welcome José Abreu and the Astros. As expected, the club managed to be both asleep and out of control at the plate, and couldn’t put up more than one run.
The Starters
Michael Kopech did that super fun thing where no one can figure out if he was good or not. Kopech started off hot and seemed to be pitching with a vengeance, not allowing a single hit for quite some time. His velocity got up to 97.9 mph, but he was wild and out of the zone. The righty made it through 4 2⁄3 innings, and didn’t give up any home runs, but was still charged with two earned runs. Those walks will always haunt you, and allowed six (a career-high). Kopech had some beautiful strikes (though just 48 of 94 pitches were in the zone) and the five strikeouts he amassed were all swinging strikes. Not bad, but not great.
Kopech’s 94-pitch outing looked like this:
J.P. France had just his second career start after a recent Triple-A call-up. France allowed just three hits and was charged with just one earned run that happened early on, as he was victimized by a Luis Robert Jr. longball. In France’s 6 2⁄3 innings pitched, he only walked one and struck out three, but was efficient and kept the South Siders incapable of scoring, even with RISP.
France’s 94-pitch outing looked like this:
Pressure Play
The Sox had two runners in on base and just one out in the fifth. What comes next? Elvis Andrus flies out to center on a 3.00 LI play.
Pressure Cooker
Elvis Andrus was 0-for-3 tonight, and always seemed to be at the plate for clutch situations, landing him with a 1.61 pLI.
Top Play
Kyle Tucker’s fifth-inning double with two outs and two on was good for .161 WPA, and in a runaway game like this, it put the Astros up for the rest of the night.
Top Performer
J.P. France not only got the win for his second career start, but also had the highest WPA, at .242.
Smackdown
Hardest hit: Yordan Álvarez takes the top two — first a ground out at 113.8 mph, and another, his home run, at 113.5 mph.
Weakest contact: Mauricio Dubón’s single in the eighth was the weakest actual hit, at 84.1 mph.
Luckiest hit: You aren’t going to like this one at all, but Kyle Tucker’s fifth-inning double that gave the Astros the lead only had an .060 xBA.
Toughest out: José Abreu’s second-inning line out had a .710 xBA.
Longest hit: HEY! We got a good one! Luis Robert Jr.’s home run traveled 428 feet. (Technically, Yordan Álvarez is tied at 428 feet for his home run, but no one cares about good things for the Astros.)
Magic Number: 4
With this loss by four, the White Sox have also lost four out of the last five games.
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