The homestand before the All-Star break went to wild extremes. Sure, being swept in the first series was in part because Boston is a pretty good team despite its record. And sweeping the second one was in part because the A’s are awful, especially with their best hitters out or slumping.
But the handedness thing was something else again. It was only a few years ago that the White Sox killed lefties. Now they just roll over and play dead. That final week painted a vivid picture of the situation.
The Red Sox started three back-of-the-rotation lefties. The White Sox scored one run, zero runs, and one run.
The Athletics used a lefty opener in the first game, and he retired all five batters he faced. Then they brought in a righty — the constipation-relief-sounding bulk reliever — and the Sox scored 14 runs. In the next game, against a regular left-handed starter, the White Sox scored one run. In the finale, against a pretty decent right-hander, they scored nine.
Even stranger, the Sox lineup without Munetaka Murakami doesn’t, on the surface, explain the wide disparity of handedness.
Or does it? Let’s take a look.
THE TWO EXTREMES
GRAND CANYON WIDE: Anyone who wonders why Will Venable will sit .300+ hitting All-Star left-handed hitter Tristan Peters for far-below-the-Mendoza-line Junior Perez against southpaws need only take a look at Peters’ platoon splits, which are as wide as they come:
Vs. RHP: .324/.376/.523, for an amazing .899 OPS, a batting average that would be third in MLB
Vs. LHP: .111/.172/.111, for an abysmal .284 OPS, which is less than half the lowest OPS in the majors this year
Note that his three hits against lefties are all singles and were probably all bunts. Maybe they don’t have lefty pitchers in Banana Ball.
BACKWARDS: When Colson Montgomery bashes a lefty, Steve Stone is inclined to act surprised. He shouldn’t be, because lefty Colson has reverse splits, and pretty big ones at that:
Vs. RHP: .206/.294/.433, an OPS of about-average .727
Vs. LHP: .250/.319/.546, a fine OPS of .866, with a higher percentage of homers and doubles, but also more K’s per AB
How can that be? Maybe because his main weakness is high heat, which doesn’t have a handedness factor. Or maybe because he also has trouble with breaking balls under his hands, which are harder for a southpaw to throw.
LET’S LOOK AT THE REST
Overall, in big-league ball, platoon splits are actually quite small, statistically. It’s no doubt because managers play the righty-lefty game so much and don’t bat especially vulnerable players like Peters. Still, right-handed batters hit righty pitchers for a .692 OPS and lefties for .750, only slightly more. Same small difference for lefty hitters, .679 OPS against lefties, .731 vs. righties.
For the White Sox, in descending bWAR order, bearing in mind that WAR is a cumulative stat, so those with fewer games played will be at a disadvantage:
Miguel Vargas, 3.3 bWAR, All-Star, bats right-handed, power hitter you’d expect to have large splits
Vs. RHP: .233/.338/.454, .792 OPS
Vs. LHP: .272/.395/.583, .978 OPS
Fairly pronounced splits, but no real weakness either way.
Chase Meidroth, 1.9 bWAR, bats right-handed, contact hitter you’d expect to have small splits
Vs. RHP: .247/.325/.342, a satanic .666 OPS
Vs. LHP: .320/.381/.466, nifty .847 OPS
Bit of a surprise, right?
Munetaka Murakami: 1.8 bWAR despite losing time, bats left-handed, a pure power hitter
Vs. RHP: .250/.383/.595, sky-high .978 OPS
Vs. LHP: .190/.342/.413, still an above-average .754 OPS despite low BA thanks to homers and walks
Pretty much what you might expect, especially since the fear he couldn’t hit heat was misplaced, but he does have a problem with breaking pitches unless they hang, in which case they travel very, very far.
Sam Antonacci: 1.6 bWAR despite starting season late, bats left-handed, mostly a contact hitter
Vs. RHP: .314/.405/.475, nifty .881 OPS in part thanks to 11 doubles
Vs. LHP: .193/.292/.211, really bad .503 OPS
Did you realize Antonacci was that bad against lefties? I sure didn’t. Helps explain the team’s failures in that direction since he’s the spirit of the outfit.
Randal Grichuk: 0.6 bWAR in limited action, bats right-handed, famed lefty killer
Vs. RHP: .204/.200/.388, OPS. 588
Vs. LHP: .273/.319/.591, very solid .910 OPS
Yet somehow, he, Vargas, and Meidroth aren’t enough to close the handedness gap.
Braden Montgomery: 0.1 bWAR, but only up for 29 games so far, switch-hitter
Vs. RHP: .233/.325/.438, above-average .761 OPS
Vs. LHP: .226/.242/.290, very poor OPS .532
An important note is that he draws lots of walks from righties, but, in a small sample size of 31 trips to the plate, has just one walk the other way, against 10 strikeouts.
Kyle Teel: 0.0 bWAR, bats left-handed, only 51 AB, so too small a sample size to count, but he does have pretty big splits in the normal direction, as he also had last year.
Andrew Benintendi: -0.2 bWAR, bat left-handed
Vs. RHP: .251/.313/.458, OPS .772
Vs. LHP: .182/.229/.212, but he’s rarely allowed to bat against lefties, just 33 AB
Interestingly, Benintendi has a career OPS of .703 against lefties, and had big reverse splits last year. Maybe he forgot how to hit them, or they learned how to pitch him.
Luisangel Acuña: -0.2 bWAR, contact hitter, speedster, bats right-handed, even though Chris Getz thinks he’s a switch-hitter
Vs. RHP: .229/.286/.277 for a .563 OPS
Vs. LHP: .258/.265/.288 for a .553 OPS
Note the much higher average against lefties, as you’d expect. But almost no walks from them, so almost the same OPS either way.
Junior Perez and Drew Romo: Not worth worrying about
SO, WHAT DID WE LEARN?
Well, there are reasons the White Sox hit right-handed pitchers better, but there sure aren’t enough reasons to explain the huge difference on the team level. They just have to hope opponents don’t decide to bring lefties up from the minors or out of the bleachers whenever the Sox are on the schedule. Or that they learn how to hit lefties better.
