The One Hitter – An Eye Popping ReyLo Statistic

May 16, 2023

This is the one hitter, don’t forget to exhale…

Yesterday I joined BeefLoaf on the Au Jus and we were discussing the White Sox relievers. When it came to Reynaldo Lopez, I mentioned to Beef that ReyLo has seen an unusual amount of batters in high leverage situations. Looking at Baseball Reference, it’s 46 out of 79 batters faced were in high leverage. That’s 58% of the batters he has faced this year. But I wondered how that stacked against other pitchers on the team. And when I did that, I forgot to filter out starters:

Results Table
Rk	Player	Split	Year	BF	ERA	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	SO/9	SO/BB	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Lucas Giolito	High Lvrge	2023	51	4.09	9	9	11.0	13	15	5	2	4	14	1.546	11.45	3.5	.353	.500	.853
2	Reynaldo López	High Lvrge	2023	46	8.38	16	0	9.2	13	11	9	3	5	13	1.862	12.10	2.6	.391	.561	.952
3	Dylan Cease	High Lvrge	2023	44	3.86	9	9	9.1	9	14	4	1	4	12	1.393	11.57	3	.341	.472	.813
4	Michael Kopech	High Lvrge	2023	32	2.35	8	8	7.2	6	11	2	0	4	6	1.304	7.04	1.5	.313	.360	.673
5	Mike Clevinger	High Lvrge	2023	29	5.68	8	8	6.1	5	10	4	2	5	3	1.579	4.26	0.6	.345	.522	.867
6	Aaron Bummer	High Lvrge	2023	26	14.40	11	0	5.0	5	6	8	0	6	8	2.200	14.40	1.33	.462	.368	.830
7	Lance Lynn	High Lvrge	2023	26	12.60	8	8	5.0	11	17	7	3	2	6	2.600	10.80	3	.500	.917	1.417
8	Kendall Graveman	High Lvrge	2023	25	4.26	11	0	6.1	4	2	3	1	3	6	1.105	8.53	2	.320	.333	.653
9	Jimmy Lambert	High Lvrge	2023	20	1.93	9	0	4.2	4	8	1	0	3	5	1.500	9.64	1.67	.368	.375	.743
10	Joe Kelly	High Lvrge	2023	13	0.00	7	0	4.0	1	1	0	0	0	5	0.250	11.25	1e20	.077	.077	.154
11	Gregory Santos	High Lvrge	2023	12	0.00	5	0	3.1	3	1	0	0	0	2	0.900	5.40	1e20	.250	.250	.500
12	Keynan Middleton	High Lvrge	2023	10	3.86	5	0	2.1	3	2	1	0	1	3	1.714	11.57	3	.400	.333	.733
13	Alex Colomé	High Lvrge	2023	5	27.00	2	0	0.2	1	2	2	1	1	0	3.000	0.00	0	.400	1.000	1.400
14	Jake Diekman	High Lvrge	2023	5	81.00	3	0	0.1	3	4	3	0	1	1	12.000	27.00	1	.800	1.000	1.800
15	Sammy Peralta	High Lvrge	2023	3		1	0	0.0	1	2	2	0	2	0			0	1.000	2.000	3.000
16	José Ruiz	High Lvrge	2023	3	0.00	1	0	0.1	1	1	0	0	1	0	6.000	0.00	0	.667	.500	1.167
17	Tanner Banks	High Lvrge	2023	2	0.00	1	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	1	0	1.500	0.00	0	.500	.000	.500
18	Jesse Scholtens	High Lvrge	2023	1		1	0	0.0	1	1	0	0	0	0				1.000	1.000	2.000

Provided by Stathead.com: View Stathead Tool Used
Generated 5/16/2023.

Yes, that’s correct, the only pitcher on the entire team with more high leverage batters faced is Lucas Giolito. None of the other starters have even been in as many high leverage situations as ReyLo. To put that in perspective, Lucas’s 51 batters faced is 23% of his batters. But obviously, relievers do get thrust into these positions, so let’s look at the next few RP on the list:

Aaron Bummer is at 26 BF which is 40% of his total and Kendall Graveman is at 25 BF which is 36% of his total.

This isn’t a defense of Reynaldo Lopez. He was supposed to be one of our better relievers this year, so he needs to be better. However, I have a feeling when he isn’t constantly facing the 2-6 hitters in high leverage situations, his numbers will probably get a lot closer to what we’ve expected.