Anthony Kay has hit 18 batters this season. Eighteen. Through 18 starts and 93.1 innings for the Chicago White Sox, the left-hander has plunked more hitters than some staffs manage across their entire rotation. And the math says he is not slowing down.
According to Baseball Reference, Kay’s 18 hit-by-pitches lead comfortably into territory no MLB pitcher has occupied in over a century. A projection circulating this week puts him on pace for 25 HBP by season’s end — which would be the most in a single season since 1909, when New York Highlanders right-hander Jack Warhop hit 26 batters across 243.1 innings.
Warhop’s record has survived two World Wars, the designated hitter, the lowering of the mound, expansion, the pitch clock, and roughly 115 seasons of baseball. Kay is eight HBPs from tying it with potentially ten-plus starts remaining on his schedule.
The 31-year-old’s journey to this particular chase is its own subplot. A first-round pick of the Blue Jays in 2016, Kay debuted in Toronto in 2019 and bounced through the Cubs and Mets organizations before spending 2024 and 2025 pitching in Japan. He returned to the affiliated ranks this season with the White Sox and has been, by most measures, useful: 6-4 with a 4.24 ERA, 76 strikeouts against 38 walks, and a 1.2 WAR across 20 appearances. He has also been, by one very specific measure, a menace.
Kay’s HBP rate works out to roughly 1.74 per nine innings — nearly double the American League average for starters. His game log tells the story in bursts. He hit two batters in a July 17 start against Toronto. He hit one in each of his June 22, June 28, and July 9 outings. The pattern is less “occasional loss of command” and more “recurring line item.”
For context on just how long Warhop’s mark has stood: Warhop pitched for the franchise that became the Yankees, back when they were still called the Highlanders and played at Hilltop Park. He was a legitimate workhorse that season — 23 starts, 21 complete games, a 2.40 ERA, 4.6 WAR — and he still managed to hit 26 men. The dead-ball era’s inside pitching was a different economy, and batters did not wear armored elbow guards. Warhop’s 26 has never been seriously threatened in the modern era.
Kay’s chase carries a wrinkle that Warhop never had to consider: the automatic-runner extra-innings rule and modern bullpen management mean fewer complete games and fewer innings per start. Warhop threw 243.1 innings in 1909. Kay is on pace for roughly 160. He is doing his damage in far less exposure, which makes the rate, if not the raw total, arguably more impressive — or more alarming, depending on which dugout you sit in.
The White Sox, for their part, have not expressed concern publicly, and Kay’s 4.24 ERA and positive WAR suggest the HBPs are not wrecking his effectiveness. But opposing on-deck circles have reason to watch closely. Seven more hit batters tie Warhop. Eight break the record. And Kay has been averaging one every five innings.
The schedule says he has time.
Sources
- Baseball Reference — Anthony Kay career stats
- Baseball Reference — Jack Warhop career stats
- r/baseball — original post noting Kay’s HBP pace