For the third time this season, an MLB player has accomplished one of the most impressive feats in the sport: hitting four home runs in a single game. On Aug. 28, Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber joined the Oakland Athletics’ freshman phenom Nick Kurtz and Arizona Diamondback Eugenio Suárez in the exclusive four-homer club.
While the achievement alone is impressive, the rarity of a four-homer game — not to mention three in one season — warrants a closer examination. In the history of Major League Baseball, 21 players have accomplished the four-home-run milestone. That makes it much rarer than a triple-play (of which there have been around 730), considerably more unique than a no-hitter (326), and slightly scarcer than the universally-coveted pitching accomplishment: a perfect game (only 24 have been tossed since 1880).
On the subject of rarity — a rabbit hole that one can get lost in within the world of baseball statistics — Kurtz, the second player this year to join the four-homer club, became the first rookie to ever accomplish such a feat in the history of the MLB. Additionally, Kurtz is the first player since Shawn Green in 2002 to rack up six hits during the four-home-run performance. The fourth overall pick in the 2024 draft from Wake Forest University, Kurtz has carried an average above .300 through his first 96 games as an Oakland Athletic.
The first player this season to hit four home runs in a single game was Eugenio Suárez of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Suárez, who represented a thorn in the side of Grant Holmes, crushed his first three home runs off of the Atlanta Braves starter. His final home run came after turning around a 97-mile-per-hour fastball, launching it into the left field stands to tie the game. Unfortunately for Suárez and the Diamondbacks, the four-homer effort proved to be futile in their 8–7 loss to the Braves. The loss was just the third time in MLB history that a team has lost after a player’s four-homer performance.
Schwarber, the most recent of the three to reach the milestone, solidified his bid into the four-homer club in a similar fashion to Suárez: against the Braves. Are they the unluckiest franchise in the league? In terms of four-home-run games, yes! The Braves have had four games in which the feat has been achieved against them, the highest in the league. Unlike Suárez, however, Schwarber was able to propel his Phillies to an astounding 19–4 victory with his impressive statline.
Still eluding the MLB record books is the five-homer game. While four-homer games are being hit at an unprecedented rate, how far away are we from the initiation of the quintuple club? According to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Stan Musial might have had the closest bid — technically — with five home runs in a single day in 1954. Granted, this came as a result of a doubleheader in which two contests were played back-to-back.
The rarest feat in the MLB to this day occurred when Cardinals’ third baseman, Fernando Tatis Sr., hit two fateful home runs in April 1999. While his home run total is obviously not as impressive as the three aforementioned sluggers, Tatis Sr. drove in eight runs in just two swings, as his home runs were grand slams. The rarity doesn’t stop there; 13 MLB players have hit two grand slams in a single game. What sets Tatis Sr.’s performance apart is that his slams occurred in a single inning. He is the only player in the history of the MLB to accomplish such an achievement: hitting two four-baggers in the span of three outs. The only person unluckier than the Braves when it comes to giving up multiple home runs? Chan Ho-Park, the Los Angeles Dodger that Tatis Sr. tagged for two in the spring of ’99.
When it comes to rarities in baseball, there is always a bigger fish. Nevertheless, while Tatis Sr.’s achievement seems to be untouchable at the moment, the rise in the rate of rare occurrences during the 2025 season might begin to turn some heads — just maybe not as fast as the head of Holmes turning to watch the third Suárez blast leaving the stadium earlier this season.
