Baseball is a weird sport, and that extends to its 21-way tie for the most homers in a single game over the years.
That’s a lot of years (131 to be precise), and a lot of games (let’s not count).
You might think that only the biggest, baddest and most Schwarbian sluggers have racked up four long balls in a single day’s work, but that’s not the case.
Given that, we have ranked all 21 of the 4-homer games from most likely to have occurred to least likely, sorted into tiers. You have Hall of Fame sluggers, sure, but also… well. You’ll see.
(All statistics through Aug. 28, 2025.)
Well, that makes sense …
The Iron Horse could rake. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
Willie Mays, Giants, Apr. 30, 1961
Mike Schmidt, Phillies, Apr. 17, 1976
Lou Gehrig, Yankees, June 3, 1932
Kyle Schwarber, Phillies, Aug. 28, 2025
Here you have three Hall of Famers, with 1,701 home runs among them. Willie Mays hit 660 in his career, and ranks sixth all-time — he retired after the 1973 season in third, behind only Babe Ruth and the ongoing career of Henry Aaron, who had 713 at the time. His going deep four times in one game is only a surprise in the sense that it’s a surprise when anyone does it. Same goes for Mike Schmidt, the Phillies’ all-time leader who remains 16th in MLB with 548 and retired in the top 10, and Lou Gehrig, whose power and 493 dingers were only limited in comparison to his teammate, Babe Ruth, and whose career was cut short at age 36 by ALS.
Schwarber isn’t necessarily a Hall of Famer, but for any misgivings anyone has about his defense, there is absolutely no question about the quality of his bat. He ranks 10th among active MLB players in home runs with 333, and all but one player on that list — Aaron Judge — has played in fewer seasons than Schwarber has. The Phillies’ slugger is also the youngest on that list, as he won’t turn 33 until March 2026. He’s on pace to break the Phillies’ single-season record for homers held by Ryan Howard — 58 in 2006 — and if he does get to 59, that would tie him for the 10th-most in a single season in MLB history. He belongs with the Hall of Fame-level power, is the thing.
Not that surprising!
Shawn Green had one of the most beautiful swings in the game, and used it to hit plenty of homers. (Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images)
Rocky Colavito, Cleveland, June 10, 1959
Gil Hodges, Dodgers, Aug. 31, 1950
Carlos Delgado, Blue Jays, Sep. 25, 2003
Shawn Green, Dodgers, May 23, 2002
Chuck Klein, Phillies, July 10, 1936
J.D. Martinez, Diamondbacks, Sep. 4, 2017
Rocky Colavito not only hit 374 home runs in his 14-year career, but he made two appearances on the short-lived series “Home Run Derby,” the 1960 television show that inspired the actual Home Run Derby MLB runs every summer. Gil Hodges hit at least 40 homers twice in his career along with four seasons of over 30 long balls, with 370 all told. Like Colavito, he’s not a Hall of Famer, but had the kind of career where four in one game only makes you double take for the normal reasons.
Delgado, despite not truly getting going until he was 24 and wrapping up as an everyday player at 36, hit 473 homers in his career. The season in which he had his 4-homer game was one of three in which he went deep at least 41 times, and from 1998 through 2003 he was unquestionably one of the most dangerous hitters in MLB. Shawn Green hit 49 homers in his best season for dingers, which stood as the most for any Dodgers player until Shohei Ohtani went yard 54 times in 2024. While he hit 328 homers, Green’s peak was as impressive as Delgado’s, with 192 of those homers coming between 1998 and 2002.
Chuck Klein, with 300 home runs, hit the fewest of anyone in this tier but gets a little extra credit for two things: of those 300 homers, 228 of them were hit between 1928 and 1934, when Klein was such a force at the plate that he won both versions of the NL Triple Crown in 1933, leading in not just home runs, RBIs and batting average, but all three of the slash line stats, too, while also leading the majors in hits. He was still in his early 30s in 1936 — his career wouldn’t fall off, causing his career numbers to stall out, for another couple of years.
J.D. Martinez mashed 331 homers in his career despite not taking off as a hitter until he was already 26. He topped out at 45 homers in 2017, when he had his 4-homer game, but also hit 43 the next season, and had three additional seasons with at least 33 bombs.
Huh!
Nick Kurtz is practically still fresh out of college, and yet. (Photo by Scott Marshall/Getty Images)
Joe Adcock, Braves, July 31, 1954
Eugenio Suárez, Diamondbacks, Apr. 26, 2025
Mike Cameron, Mariners, May 2, 2002
Josh Hamilton, Rangers, May 8, 2012
Nick Kurtz, Athletics, July 25, 2025
Bob Horner, Braves, July 6, 1986
Joe Adcock is here mostly because he has more seasons with fewer than 20 homers (10) than he does over 20 (seven), and with no 40-homer campaigns to bump him up a tier. The power was unquestionable, though, even if he didn’t get the playing time that it should have granted him. Suárez is 33 years old, with 301 home runs since he became a full-time player at 24. Still, thanks to his low averages, his homer output waxes and wanes, between power hitter and power hitter.
Mike Cameron had power, but he reached the 30-homer mark once, and with exactly that many long balls. Walks and defense were his more significant contributions, though he did finish with 278 dingers. Josh Hamilton’s power was undeniable, but he also just wasn’t around for all that long as an everyday player: he played in nine seasons and averaged 114 games per year, which is how he finished with “just” 200 home runs despite that pop.
Nick Kurtz is clearly a monster at the plate, and already is – just over a year removed from college – one of the best hitters in the majors. That’s exactly why he’s more a surprise than not, though: he managed this already! Bob Horner was a reliable power hitter, from an era where home run numbers weren’t particularly gaudy. If someone was going to do it in the 80s, he was as good of a pick as any, but you probably would have bet on “no one” instead: you would have come close, too, since Horner is the only player to manage a 4-homer game in that decade.
Huh?!
Yes, Scooter Gennettt hit four homers in a single game, too. (Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images)
Mark Whiten, Cardinals, Sep. 7, 1993
Pat Seerey, White Sox, July 18, 1948
Scooter Gennett, Reds, June 6, 2017
Bobby Lowe, Braves, May 39, 1894
Ed Delahanty, Phillies, July 13, 1896
Mark Whiten hit just 105 home runs in an 11-year career, with just two of those campaigns making it over the 20-homer mark. In seven of those 11 seasons, he had single-digit home run totals! Whiten’s 4-homer game came in his career-best 25-homer campaign, and tied the single-game RBIs record of 12 — it’s the only season in which he had over 80 RBIs.
Pat Seerey had 86 long balls in seven seasons, but at least hit double-digits in homers in every one of his full campaigns. Scooter Gennett had 87 in seven seasons, with 64 of those home runs inexplicably hit across just three of those seven.
Bobby Lowe was the first-ever player to hit four home runs in a single game, and did it in 1984. It should not shock you that the 17 home runs hit in this 19th-century season represented a career-high for Lowe, who went yard 71 times in 18 years.
No one had a more surprising 4-homer game than Ed Delahanty, however, for one very important reason: while Delahanty did not have the fewest career homers of these 21 players — he had 101 in 16 seasons — and led the league in dingers twice, two of his four home runs were of the inside-the-park variety. No other player with a 4-homer game has even one inside-the-park shot.
With the caverns used for baseball stadiums in the 1800s, that inside-the-park homers were hit is no surprise, but two of them and two fence-clearing shots in a single game? That’s the least-likely outcome of them all.
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