Major League Baseball’s story in the 21st century has been significantly devoted to single-season longball feats – a Major League record here, an AL record there, a shuffling of NL and AL rookie records, perhaps a new record for catchers this season. The narrative has been much less consumed by high-end (but not record-setting) seasons for three-base hits, with only a trio of players reaching 20 in one year. Cristian Guzmán inaugurated the new millennium with 20 in 2000 for the Twins and then, in a “What’s in these waters” kind of season in 2007, Detroit’s Curtis Granderson (23) and Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins (20) each reached this peak. Arizona’s Corbin Carroll is slashing and driving his way toward, maybe, a fourth summit in 2025, and if he does, he’s going to do a lot more than just appear as a blip among all the stories of balls leaving the yard.
Corbin Carroll tripled twice in a Diamondbacks win, giving him 16 three-base hits for the year. Carroll has four multi-triple games this season, tying for the most for any player in a year since 1901. Here’s the full list of players with four:
1911 Larry Doyle
1912 Owen Wilson
1931 Bill Terry
1940 Barney McCosky
2004 Carl Crawford
2025 Corbin Carroll
~This effort gave Carroll a much-needed injection into his pursuit of the eighth 20-double, 20-triple, 20-homer season in history, as he already has checked off the doubles and home run categories, with 22 and 27, respectively. The 20-20-20 club consists of these players and seasons.
| Player | Season | 2B | 3B | HR |
| Frank Schulte | 1911 | 30 | 21 | 21 |
| Jim Bottomley | 1928 | 42 | 20 | 31 |
| Jeff Heath | 1941 | 32 | 20 | 24 |
| Willie Mays | 1957 | 26 | 20 | 35 |
| George Brett | 1979 | 42 | 20 | 23 |
| Curtis Granderson | 2007 | 38 | 23 | 23 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 2007 | 38 | 20 | 30 |
~Carroll also stole his 17th base of the year. Of the seven players listed above, Schulte, Mays, Granderson and Rollins added 20+ steals to their arrangement.
34-year-old Matthew Boyd (5.1 IP, 4 R) didn’t exactly silence the Brewers’ bats, but ultimately, the effort was enough to bring the Cubs’ southpaw his 12th win of the year. Even with the ho-hum line, Boyd’s ERA+ hovers around the 150 mark – a level rarely touched by qualifying pitchers replicating his age and handed-ness when hurling for the North Siders.
Cubs Lefties, 150 (or Better) ERA+ in a Qualifying Season
214 Jack Pfiester (1907)
174 Jack Pfiester (1906)
171 Jon Lester (2016)
167 Dick Ellsworth (1963)
160 Hippo Vaughn (1919)
159 Hippo Vaughn (1918)
153 Ray Prim (1945)
Cubs, 150 (or Better) ERA+ in a Qualifying Season While in an Age-34 (or Older) Campaign
1945 Ray Prim, 153 in his age-38 season
Milwaukee’s Sal Frelick went 3-for-8 in a doubleheader to lift his average to .298, currently standing as the fourth-best mark in the NL. Miami’s Xavier Edwards went 2-for-4 to push his mark to .304, second in the league (a couple of Dodgers, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman, are first and third, respectively, in the batting race) . Both Frelick and Edwards are in their age-25 seasons. It’s a fun list of players who’ve been so young (or younger) and managed to post the NL’s highest average, with every decade since the start of the 20th century represented.
Modern Era: Players in Age-25 or Younger Seasons to Have the NL’s Highest BA
1900s Ginger Beaumont (1902)
1910s Sherry Magee (1910), Heinie Zimmerman (1912), Edd Roush (1917)
1920s Rogers Hornsby (1920, 1921), Paul Waner (1927)
1930s Arky Vaughan (1935), Joe Medwick (1937)
1940s Pete Reiser (1941), Stan Musial (1943, 1946)
1950s Willie Mays (1954), Henry Aaron (1956, 1959)
1960s Tommy Davis (1962, 1963)
1970s Bill Madlock (1975, 1976), Keith Hernandez (1979)
1980s Tony Gwynn (1984)
1990s Gary Sheffield (1992)
2000s Albert Pujols (2003), Hanley Ramírez (2009)
2010s Carlos González (2010), Buster Posey (2012)
2020s Juan Soto (2020)
Tarik Skubal fanned 10 batters to reach 200 K’s – the second straight season he’s hit the milestone.
~Skubal joins Mickey Lolich (1969-1974) and Hal Newhouser (1945-1946) as Tigers southpaws to surmount the 200-K plateau in consecutive seasons.
~In this effort, Skubal allowed three hits and two walks over seven innings to lower his WHIP to 0.866; last season, he authored a 0.922. If he’s under one at the end of the year, he’ll hobnob with some exclusive company.
1901-2024: Left-Handers With Consecutive Seasons of Sub-One WHIP, 200+ Strikeouts
4 Sandy Koufax (1963-1966)
3 Johan Santana (2004-2006), Clayton Kershaw (2013-2015)
2 Chris Sale (2017-2018)
Cristopher Sánchez fanned a dozen batters, the third time this season the Phillies’ lefty has sent 12 batters back to the dugout with some sort of K. Few southpaws for the franchise in the Modern Era have piled on this kind of volume, with Steve Carlton and Cliff Lee the only others to have at least three such games in one season. Carlton had six games with 12+ K’s in 1982 and five in 1972 and three in 1977, 1979 and 1983. Lee had four efforts in 2011.
In the Phillies’ 126th game of the year, Kyle Schwarber hit his 44th home run. In the Dodgers’ 126th contest of the campaign, Shohei Ohtani hit his 44th. The pair are paired at the top of the NL leaderboard in the category and linked as a couple of the more prodigious bashers the NL has ever seen at this point in a season.
NL History: Most HRs Through 126 Team Games
54 Barry Bonds (2001)
53 Sammy Sosa (1999)
51 Mark McGwire (1998)
50 Mark McGwire (1999)
49 Sammy Sosa (2001)
48 Sammy Sosa (1998)
47 Giancarlo Stanton (2017)
46 Luis Gonzalez (2001)
44 Hack Wilson (1930), Johnny Mize (1947), Ryan Howard (2006), Shohei Ohtani (2025), Kyle Schwarber (2025)
The Yankees tied a franchise record with nine home runs (accomplished the first time earlier this season), getting multi-homer efforts from Giancarlo Stanton, Cody Bellinger and José Caballero, as well as receiving one dinger from Aaron Judge, who chipped in with his 40th longball of the year.
~There are three AL teams ever to hit at least nine homers in a game – the Yankees twice this season and the Blue Jays, who launched 10 in a win in 1987.
~The Yankees tied a Modern Era high mark with three players producing multi-homer games, a feat that’s now been accomplished 23 times since 1901. The Yankees had one previous entry among this near two dozen: on May 30, 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle and Moose Skowron all went yard twice.
~Stanton enjoyed his 37th multi-homer game, tied for the 42nd most ever. He’s matched up with Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mike Piazza, Alfonso Soriano and Edwin Encarnación.
~With his milestone blast, Judge became the fourth Yankee to have at least four seasons of at least 40 homers. Babe Ruth is the sultan of this association, with 11, followed by Lou Gehrig (five) and Mickey Mantle (four).
~Judge’s night (a single and a walk to accompany the homer, in six plate appearances) left him with MLB-best placements in all three main rate stats: a .333 average, a .447 on-base mark and a .691 slugging percentage. In the Expansion Era, a batter has captured the Major League rate stat Triple Crown on four occasions. Going backward:
2013 Miguel Cabrera (.348/.442/.636)
2002 Barry Bonds (.370/.582/.799)
1999 Larry Walker (.379/.458/.710)
1980 George Brett (.390/.454/.664)
Nick Kurtz doubled twice in a 3-for-3 night that gave him his 50th extra-base hit of the year. The first baseman, who didn’t make his big league debut until April 23, is one of 33 players ever to have at least 50 in their debut season while being in an age-22 or younger campaign. If all 33 are organized by highest to lowest OPS, Kurtz, with his current 1.044, is near the very top of the list, behind Yordan Alvarez (1.067 in 2019) and Ted Williams (1.045 in 1939) and ahead of Albert Pujols (1.013 in 2001), Jimmy Williams (.946 in 1899) and Frank Robinson (.936 in 1956).
Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers hit his MLB-leading 15th homer since the All-Star break. The franchise record for longballs after the break, despite having candidates like Jimmie Foxx, Reggie Jackson, José Canseco, Mark McGwire and Jason Giambi, belongs to Khris Davis and his 27 in 2018 (Foxx (1933) and McGwire (1996) are tied for the second most, with 24).
Bobby Witt, Jr. connected for his 100th career home run, a milestone that suggests multiple explorations.
~With the four-base hit, Witt became the fourth player – after Bobby Bonds, Darryl Strawberry and Julio Rodríguez – to have 100+ longballs and 100+ steals through four big league seasons.
Bonds 100 HR and 135 SB
Strawberry 108 HR and 100 SB
Rodríguez 104 HR and 109 SB
Witt, Jr. 100 HR and 142 SB
~Witt is one of seven shortstops in history to reach 100 home runs through an age-25 season. The full list, which considers those players who had at least two-thirds of their games at short through their respective age-25 campaigns:
241 Álex Rodríguez
133 Cal Ripken, Jr.
130 Francisco Lindor
116 Willie Wells
107 Carlos Correa
103 Hanley Ramírez
100 Bobby Witt, Jr.
Hunter Greene struck out 12 batters without issuing a walk as the Reds received a rare presentation. This effort gave the franchise its 12th pitching line since 1901 to feature at least a dozen strikeouts with nary a free pass. The first submitter was Jim O’Toole in 1962 and the latest had been Tyler Mahle in 2022. Gary Nolan (1967) and Johnny Cueto (2014) each had two performances fitting this bill.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.