With the “sacks packed with Sox,” as Hawk used to say, Yoán Moncada was the man for the 2018 White Sox.
In 19 plate appearances, he slashed .471/.474/.941 with eight hits, three doubles, one triple, one home run, one walk, four strikeouts and one sacrifice fly.
Sure it was only 19 plate appearances. And of course, bases-loaded situations are the easiest to accumulate loads of RBIs. But 20 of his 61 RBIs in 2018 came in those 19 bases-loaded plate appearances. Or more specifically, 20 of his 61 RBIs in 2018 came in 11 of those bases-loaded plate appearances.
Only 20 players topped Moncada’s 19 plate appearances with the bases loaded. Only two topped his eight bases-loaded hits: Xander Bogaerts and José Peraza with nine each. Only Bogaerts had more extra-base hits with the bases loaded (six to Moncada’s five).
The last three White Sox players with at least five bases-loaded extra-base hits in a season are Moncada in 2018, Albert Belle in 1997 and Tom Paciorek in 1983.
One thing Moncada did that hadn’t been done by a White Sox player since Carlos Quentin in 2008 was “hitting for the cycle” with the bases loaded over the course of a season. Moncada had three singles, three doubles, one triple and one home run with the bases clogged. Quentin only had three extra-base hits with the bases loaded when he did it.
A couple of fun notes on Moncada’s grand slam on April 18 at Oakland:
MLB
— At 22 years, 326 days, he was the youngest White Sox player to hit a grand slam since Kevin Bell hit an inside-the-park grand slam on June 22, 1976, at 20 years, 345 days.
— It was the first time in major league history two Cuban-born players hit a grand slam on the same day. Yoenis Céspedes also hit one.
And hey, Moncada struck out at a much lower rate with the bases loaded than not loaded. With the bases loaded, he struck out four times in 19 plate appearances (21.1 percent). With the bases not loaded, he struck out 213 times in 631 plate appearances (33.8 percent).
Again, this isn’t much to go by, but let’s celebrate a positive when we see it. Moncada raked with the bases loaded in 2018.