Walk this way: Unpacking Yasmani Grandal's quirky slash line

White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal strode to the plate in the eighth inning Thursday. Earlier against the Orioles, he had a single, a strikeout, a double-play grounder, and another strikeout. Then he did what he's done best this year: He took a base on balls.

Unlike any player in history, Grandal has managed to blend an extremely low batting average (.141 through Thursday) with an extremely high on-base percentage (.391, exceeded by only seven other American Leaguers).

Astonishingly, his OBP is five points higher than that of teammate Yermin Mercedes, who just happened to hold the AL's highest batting average (.340) entering Friday's game.

The key: Grandal's astronomically high frequency of walks, an AL-leading 39 through 34 games played. Other than Barry Bonds, nobody else in league annals has ever maintained a higher walk rate for a full season than Grandal has done thus far in 2021, according to MLB.com reporter Sarah Langs in a recent article.

Partly explaining the low-average, high-walk dichotomy is that he's hit into hard outs more than is typical, Langs noted. And when Grandal does get on base via a hit, he often circles the bases: He has six home runs among his first 13 hits through Thursday.

For a more detailed look at Grandal's exceedingly unusual slash line, visit https://tinyurl.com/GrandalSlash and https://tinyurl.com/GrandalSlash2.

Ks an iffy success barometer

Here's one way to look at the White Sox success this season: Through 49 games, the team's pitching staff had struck out 483 batters, while its own batters had whiffed 425 times. On average, that's 1.2 more batted balls in play per game.

Then again, it's perilous to look at things through such a limited lens. Who needs to put the ball in play so much? The Tampa Bay Rays struck out more than anyone else last year, and they made it to the World Series. In fact, the four teams most prone to striking out in 2020 all made the playoffs, including the White Sox.

This year, the Rays are at it again, going down on strikes more than any other club - while surging into first place in the AL East with a recent 11-game winning streak.

No-no pace can't keep up

Heading into the weekend, MLB batters were hitting for a .236 average - one point lower than the all-time nadir, which came in 1968, aka "The Year of the Pitcher."

Obviously fueling that nose-dive in average is the spate of six no-hitters this season, just one short of the all-time MLB record for an entire season. Yep, the Majors are on pace for nearly 20 no-hitters.

Strange as it may sound, I see it as a 50-50 chance pitchers eclipse the mark of seven no-nos, let alone get anywhere close to 20 overall. At most, there will be 10 no-hitters in 2021, and I'd make a (friendly, nonfinancial) wager that it won't be that many.

My reasoning is twofold

First, while pitchers are dominating as never before, too many things must go right to pull off a no-hitter: Line drives hit right at fielders, bloopers that don't find an open patch of grass, and so forth. Through one-third of the season, there has simply been a string of games where luck was on the pitchers' side.

Second, even when things go right, they can go wrong in the longer run - and that will make managers think twice about allowing their pitchers to run high pitch counts. Consider Yankees pitcher Corey Kluber, who pulled off a no-hitter May 19, only to leave with a shoulder injury in his next start this past Tuesday.

Though there may not be a connection between the two events, Kluber being sidelined for at least two months is a cautionary tale that could prompt managers to give starters the hook after they reach a given pitch count, no-hit bid be damned.

• Matt Baron supplements his baseball brainpower with Retrosheet.org for research.