On Friday in Miami, Shohei Ohtani etched his name into baseball history when he reached 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same game. But that was just the milestone facet of the game.
“That has to be the greatest baseball game of all time,” teammate Gavin Lux said after Ohtani’s 6-for-6 performance led the Dodgers to a 20-4 thumping of the Marlins.
He may be correct. According to a Game Score formula devised here at Baseball Egg, Ohtani had the best single game ever by a batter, since at least 1920, when RBI became an official statistic. And considering he had three homers in Friday’s game, it’s unlikely any batter ever surpassed his amazing performance before 1920.
Best Game in MLB History by a Batter
We checked every MLB game since 1900, and added RUNS, RBI, STOLEN BASES, and TOTAL BASES. Every player with a total game score of 25 is listed in the table below:
Ohtani’s Game Score of 33 is the best ever, eclipsing the previous record of 32 held jointly by Shawn Green (also for the Dodgers, in 2002), and Mark Whiten for the Cardinals in 1993. Both Whiten and Green blasted four homers in their big games.
As Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic pointed out, no player in baseball history had ever stolen multiple bases and also hit three homers in a game until Ohtani did it.
The fact that Ohtani had his career game on the night when he reached the 50 HR and 50 SB marks, is all the more amazing.
But Ohtani is so amazing: how can we know Friday’s performance was even his “career game?” What if Shohei did something similar on a night when he pitched and got the win? There’s really no one who compares to Ohtani. Not even Babe Ruth ever had a game like the Dodger star did on Friday in Miami. It also came on the night that the Dodgers clinched a postseason spot.
Batters with 3 Home Runs AND 6 Hits in the Same Game
Ohtani was 6-for-6 on Friday. He had three homers, two doubles, and a single. He was thrown out trying to stretch his second double. If he had been successful, Ohtani could have had a cycle. It’s the only thing that went wrong for the Japanese star on his incredible night.
Ohtani is only the seventh player to have six hits AND at least three home runs in the same game. The complete list contains some legendary baseball names:
- Ty Cobb, 1925
- Jimmie Foxx, 1932
- Walker Cooper, 1949
- Shawn Green, 2002
- Edgardo Alfonzo, 1999
- Anthony Rendon, 2017
- Shohei Ohtani, 2024
It’s worth noting that when Cobb had his big game it came after he promised news reporters that he would do it. Sound impossible? It’s true. On May 5, 1925, Cobb told assembled reporters before a game against the Browns, “Today for the first time, I will try to hit home run.” In the days leading up to that game. the Detroit star had grown tired of hearing about the slugging exploits of Babe Ruth. For years, Cobb bristled at the attention Ruth received for hitting home runs. To Cobb, baseball was an art, and the science of hitting required smarts, not brawn. Ruth, Cobb felt, was nothing more than a “big oaf swinging for the fences.”
On May 5, at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Cobb hit three home runs over the right field fence. In a later trip to the plate, Ty blasted a ball that slammed into the wall in right, only a few feet from being a fourth homer. He also had two singles. The next day, the 38-year old Cobb hit two more home runs, still wishing to show off his power.
“I can hit home runs,” Ty told reporters after his five-homers-in-two-days performance. “but now I will go back to smart hitting.”
Ohtani doesn’t need to get any smarter. He doesn’t need to change a thing. He’s baseball’s biggest star. He’s the best slugger and best hitter in the game. He may also be one of the five or ten best pitchers. Next month, he’ll finally play in the postseason. He probably won’t have a single game as great as the one we saw on Friday. But, with his talent, who knows?
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