Crosstown beatdown

The South Side's potent offense hits the national stage, as the White Sox dismantle Jon Lester and the Cubs in a 10-1 rout

What a night. WHAT. A. NIGHT.

On a national stage, the White Sox just put on an absolute show, thoroughly embarrassing Jon Lester and the Cubs. 

The offense was ridiculously LOUD. Like “2,547 feet worth of home runs” loud. I don’t have a clue where to look that up, but that total home run distance has to be close to a record. 

Dallas Keuchel was masterful, working eight innings of one-run ball. This game was so one-sided that David Ross had Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras out of the game by the fifth inning, after the Sox extended the lead to 8-0. When the dust settled, the Sox took home the opener of the series by a final of 10-1.

Sox continue their assault on left-handed pitchers

From the time this roster was constructed, it was apparent that this team was going to absolutely mash left-handed pitching. Tonight’s win moves the Sox to a perfect 7-0 against left-handed starters, tops in baseball. I don’t want to count any chickens, but it will be interesting to see potential playoff matchups and the handedness of the opposing rotations. Based solely on this, it seems like the Yankees, Rays, Athletics, and Blue Jays may be good matchups, giving the Sox to get a chance to tee off on a few left-handed starters.

Any left-handed starter the night before having to face the White Sox.

Something has to give

Luis Robert came into the game with on pace to set records when it comes to highest swinging-strike rate, leading baseball by a wide margin. Jon Lester, on the other hand, came in with the lowest swinging-strike rate of all MLB pitchers. For a toolsy rookie with some issues making contact, Lester seemed to be the perfect matchup.

Yep, that’ll play. Not bad for his first at-bat in the Crosstown Classic.

Pito Power, x2

José Abreu was responsible for two of the South Siders' six home runs tonight, as he continues a recent six-game hot streak where he has gone 12-for-26, with four home runs and 11 RBIs. Of all the guys in the lineup, Abreu loves seeing lefties on the schedule more than anyone. His continued production in the middle of the lineup will be crucial throughout what is now a tight race for the AL Central.

TRIGGER WARNING: ADVANCED STATS, FEEL FREE TO SKIP

Many in the baseball analytics community were expecting significant regression out of batting champ Tim Anderson this year because of his extremely high 2019 BABIP, along with a batted ball profile that looked unspectacular on the surface. However, digging into some advanced stats reveals something significant that lends credence to the notion that 2019 was not simply a fluke. This metric is called launch angle standard deviation. Average launch angle is something that is talked about quite frequently, but can be deceiving.

Say one player hits five pop-outs with a launch angle of 50 degrees, and five ground outs with a launch angle of -30 degrees. Another player hits 10 line drives, all with launch angles of 10 degrees. Both of these players will end up with an average launch angle of 10 degrees, but obviously their quality of contact is much different. This is where launch angle standard deviation, or the consistency of the player's launch angle on all of their batted balls, comes in. If a player has a low launch angle standard deviation, they are typically hitting lots of line drives with high expected batting averages.

This is where TA7 broke out in 2019, ranking near the very top of the leaderboards in this metric, which explains significantly the high BABIP despite middling exit velocity numbers. This year, Anderson has taken it to a whole new level by keeping this launch angle consistency while also ranking in the 92nd percentile as far as exit velocity goes. With another rocket double off the wall in dead center tonight, expect TA to continue his ascent as one of the top hitters in the game.

Notes

• It turned out to be the perfect opportunity to give Yoán Moncada the day off, as the Sox could have legitimately had a high school kid over at third and would still have won this game. Although Sox Twitter was up in arms about the decision, Moncada has been noticeably hobbled of late, and hopefully the day off will serve him well moving forward. Ricky Renteria said he'd be in the lineup tomorrow.
• What do you do with Nick Madrigal? Danny Mendick, who also homered tonight, has played his way into a significant role moving forward, at least until he cools down. He has basically been everything that Sox fans were hoping to get out of Madrigal, a scrappy gamer that will put together good at-bats and make plays in the field, with the added bonus of some pop as well. Despite Madrigal returning soon, with Mendick's solid play and stellar dance moves, it will be tough to send Mendick back to the bench.

• With both the Twins and Cleveland losing tonight, the White Sox now sit a game back of the Twins for first place, with the Wahoos in-between at a half-game out. The Twins offense, outside of Nelson Cruz, has been surprisingly dormant this year, and Cleveland is dealing with the repercussions of the Plesac/Clevenger fiasco. With the Pirates and Royals upcoming on the schedule, the door is wide open for the White Sox to make a move to the top of the division.