Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Thome: a Home Run, Strikeout, and Walk in the Same Game

Earlier this season I made note of the fact that Jim Thome had become the all-time three true outcomes (TTO) king, as he amassed the highest combined career total of home runs, walks, and strikeouts (which are the three true outcomes, the three results of any plate appearance that require no one but the pitch and hitter). It's fun to look at career totals, but I like counting individual games too, so I'm going to look at instances in which a player collected all the TTO in a single game. As with many of my statistical scavenger hunts, this one owes a tip of the hat to Baseball-Reference and its Play Index.

It turns out that just as Thome has the highest combined total of the three true outcomes, he also has the most games with at least one of each. We could call such a game a Thome.

All-time leaders in games with at least one HR, BB, and K (updated through 2015):


Rank
Player
Thomes
1
Jim Thome
154
2
Mark McGwire
133
t3
Babe Ruth
125
t3
Barry Bonds
125
t3
Adam Dunn
125
6
Harmon Killebrew
111
7
Alex Rodriguez
107
8
Manny Ramirez
105
9
Sammy Sosa
97
10
Frank Thomas
94
11
Ken Griffey
92
12
Mickey Mantle
87
13
Mike Schmidt
85
14
Frank Robinson
84
15
Willie Stargell
82
16
Fred McGriff
81
16
Eddie Mathews
81
16
Reggie Jackson
81
16
Jeff Bagwell
81
20
Jim Edmonds
80


(These stats go back to 1913. I think it's safe to consider the above list an all-time rankings though, because none of the players listed above hit fewer than Edmonds' 393 home runs, whereas the career home run leader through 1912 was Roger Conner, with 138 of them.)

Here are the active (played in 2012) leaders:


Rank
Player
Thomes
1
Jim Thome
154
2
Adam Dunn
110
3
Alex Rodriguez
98
4
Bobby Abreu
72
5
Carlos Pena
70
6
Chipper Jones
69
7
Ryan Howard
68
8
David Ortiz
62
t9
Lance Berkman
59
t9
Carlos Beltran
59


Adam Dunn is obviously charging up both of these lists and if he keeps doing what he's been doing for another another four or five years, he has a good shot at passing Jim Thome.

(Dunn had only another 15 games like this in his career after I originally wrote this post.)

Here's a look at the single-season leaders (updated through 2015:


Rank
Player
Year
Thomes
1
Mark McGwire
1999
21
2
Mark McGwire
1998
20
3
Adam Dunn
2004
17
t4
Babe Ruth
1921
16
t4
Barry Bonds
2001
16
t4
Adam Dunn
2012
16
t7
Mark McGwire
1997
15
t7
Carlos Pena
2007
15
t7
Carlos Pena
2008
15
t7
Ryan Howard
2008
15
t11
Harmon Killebrew
1964
14
t11
Harmon Killebrew
1969
14
t11
Mark McGwire
1996
14
t11
Jim Edmonds
2000
14
t11
Sammy Sosa
2001
14
t11
Jim Thome
2002
14
t11
Manny Ramirez
2003
14
t11
Ryan Howard
2007
14

Finally, there is the double-TTO. Seven times in history a player has had at least TWO home runs, TWO walks, and TWO strikeouts:


Player
Date
Ted Williams
June 6, 1949
George Foster
October 1, 1978
Manny Ramirez
July 29, 2000
Bret Boone
May 2, 2002
Bernie Williams
May 17, 2002
Alex Rodriguez
June 22, 2004
Richie Sexson
September 22, 2006

That's some good three-true-outcoming!

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