Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Will Yasmani Grandal end up with one of the most bizarre offensive seasons ever?

Yasmani Grandal
White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal's numbers are weird. His batting average coming into Wednesday night's game against the Oakland Athletics stinks -- .228 -- but it's hard to complain about his overall slash line of .228/.418/.529. 

Grandal's on-base percentage is the best among Sox players who are in the regular lineup, and his slugging percentage is second-best, only to Luis Robert (.539). 

His OPS is a team-best .947, and his OPS+ is 161, meaning he is 61% better than the league average among those who play his position.

But here's what is really weird about Grandal: He has only 47 hits all season, but he has 51 runs scored and 54 RBIs.

Never before in the history of baseball -- and that's a long damn time -- has a player with more than 40 hits had more runs scored and RBIs than hits in a single season.

It's something to keep an eye on down the stretch, although Grandal has 13 hits in eight games since returning from the 10-day injured list. During that time, he's raised his batting from .188 to .228, bashed five home runs and collected 17 RBIs.

He might actually be swinging the bat too well to continue this anomaly of a season.

White Sox win opener in Oakland

Grandal worked a bases-loaded walk in Tuesday's 6-3 win over the Athletics, so he did get one RBI in a game in which he also collected one hit.

This victory was full of anomalies for the Sox. They had three run-producing hits, all against left-handed pitchers, and all by batters who have not done well against lefties.

Gavin Sheets is 1 for 14 against lefties this season, but the one hit was Tuesday night -- and RBI single in the fifth inning off A.J. Puk. Cesar Hernandez was 5 for 33 against lefties since joining the Sox -- until he delivered a two-run single in that same fifth inning that capped a three-run rally and gave the South Siders a 4-1 lead.

Brian Goodwin? He's 7 for 57 against lefties this season, but his broken-bat, two-out, two-run single in the eighth inning off Jake Diekman gave the Sox a 6-1 lead and effectively put the game away.

And, oh yeah, Jimmy Lambert pitched five innings of one-run ball for the Sox to earn his first career victory.

So, it was a night for surprises and anomalies, and one might argue that a Sox victory in Oakland is an anomaly in its own right. Before Tuesday, the last time the Sox won a regular-season game in Oakland was July 3, 2017, more than four years ago.

Whatever the Sox do for the remainder of this series, perhaps you can argue they've already exceeded expectations simply by winning a game in Oakland.

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