And I just inadvertently tested what I said by unplugging it while it was asleep at my desk which woke it up and then pressing the power button to put it back to sleep. It burned through 15% of my battery during the 40 minute commute back home.
If you happen to wake it up from sleep by unplugging it, what I find works is to log back in so that you get to your desktop and then press the sleep button from there. I wonder if this happens because Windows doesn't flip the, in basic terms, sleep flag such that it still thinks it's asleep even though unplugging it woke it up which prevents it from automatically going to sleep after a period of inactivity.