Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton continue his up and down career by belting not three, but four home runs on the night with five hits total and eight RBIs. Hamilton collected 18 total bases in the game, a new American League record (previous being 16 among multiple players) in a nine inning game. Shawn Green, during his four home run game of 2002, set the single game record that still stands at 19.
Nevertheless, Hamilton's feat is remarkable and only the 16th (14th in the modern era) time a four home run game has occurred despite a quarter of them occurring in the last ten years (Green, Mike Cameron, Carlos Delgado). In the previous post, I mention the odds of it happening in a game are 0.006 %. That number was slightly off as I ignored the two times it occurred prior to the modern era. In any event, the corrected odds including Hamilton's terrific performance tonight are the following:
16 Four Home Run Games
200,520 Games Played
16 / 200,520 = 0.0000798
So that makes for a 0.00798% chance or once every 12,532 games. That's equal to just over five seasons of play and would suggest at this exact rate, the next one would occur in June of 2017. Here's to Josh Hamilton's fantastic performance, and that the Mayans aren't right about 2012.
It's certainly in the conversation for one of the rarest single game baseball feats. Baseball Almanac has a handy page of baseball feats (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/featmenu.shtml). Here are some of the more rare feats:
ReplyDeleteHomers by Pitchers Off Each Other in the Same Game: 17 times (Last: Denny Neagle/Kevin Millwood, 5/18/2002)
4 Homers in a Game: 16 times (Last: Josh Hamilton, 5/8/2012)
Unassisted Triple Play: 15 times (Last: Eric Bruntlett, 8/23/2009)
...and the rarest of all...is a tie:
10 RBI in a game: 13 times (Last: Garret Anderson, 8/21/2007; http://bit.ly/IVzl01)
2 Grand Slams in a Game: 13 times (Last: Josh Willingham, 7/27/2009)
Fernando Tatis is the only player ever to have two grand slams in one inning (added to a long list of embarrassing moments for Chan Ho Park).
Hmmm, I wasn't aware of that list. I might have to look at it. It's somewhat funny how frequently these records have been added to. I remember when Mark Whiten hit four home runs with the Cardinals, and now four more have done it since then.
ReplyDeleteIn the lead off back-to-back-to-back, I don't personally remember it happening the first time in 1987, but recall when it was the only team to have that record. I completely missed the fact that the Atlanta Braves did it in 2003.