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!