(AUDACY) White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal led the American League in on-base percentage during May, posting a .467 mark that trailed only Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos (.476) throughout all of MLB (minimum 50 plate appearances). Grandal also ranked second-to-last in the AL in batting average, recording just six hits in 44 at-bats for a paltry .136 average.
Wait, what? Yes, you read that right.
Every other batter in the league's top 40 in on-base percentages from May is batting at least .200, with the majority of the top 25 batting over .300. That wasn't the route Grandal took to getting on base, as he instead walked 29 times in the month, the most of anyone in baseball.
If you're a frequent peruser of Twitter's baseball community, you'll know that Jeremy Frank always brings out the best in terms of weird and wild statistics. As per usual, he had some interesting tidbits on the Grandal matter.
Here's another fun factoid: Had Grandal not recorded a single hit and gone 0-44 in all of his at-bats, his on-base percentage still would've been .387, which would have been tied with Ian Happ and Juan Soto as a top-40 figure. Let me say that again: Grandal could have gone 0-of-44 and batted .000, and he would still have had a better on-base percentage in May than the large majority of the league. He could've put up a complete goose egg in the hit and batting average column, and his on-base percentage would've been higher than, oh, the likes of Mike Trout, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Mookie Betts.
Forget the year of the pitcher. Grandal just brought us the month of the walker.
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