Red Sox fans, look away. While Boston toils away with the worst record in the American League, the Dodgers are loving their new acquisition in right field. Mookie Betts, the recent signee of a 12-year, $365-million extension, leads the league in bWAR and recently found himself in the history books with his sixth career three-homer game.
It ties the MLB record for such a feat, with two other players, and he's still only 27 years old. In fact, including Betts only eight players ever have at least five games of three home runs. As you could imagine, the list is loaded with some of the biggest sluggers the game has ever seen:
Johnny Mize: The Hall of Famer missed three of his prime years - ages 30-through-32 - because of World War II, deflating his career home run total to 359, but make no mistake that he could bop with the best of them. The 10-time All-Star led the National League in home runs four times, and all of baseball three times. His first three-homer game came at age 25 with the Cardinals in 1938 - in fact, he did it twice in the span of eight days that year - and his last came 12 years later with the Yankees in 1950. His record of six would stand alone for over 50 years, until the turn of the century.
Sammy Sosa: He of 609 career home runs tied Mize's record in 2002 with his sixth career three home run game, all coming between 1996-02 (when he averaged 52.5 homers per season). Half of those performances came in a 2001 season in which he hit 64 long balls, often forgotten because that was the year Barry Bonds hit 73. On August 9, August 22 and September 23 he had separate three-homer contests.
For context about how ridiculous Betts' achievement is, Sosa accomplished the feat in 2,354 career games. Mize did it in 1,884 games. Betts? Just 813.
Joe Carter: He's best known for his walk-off to win the 1993 World Series, but Carter was far more than just that one moment. The five-time All-Star hit 396 career big league homers, including five games with a trio of long balls. The first four came with Cleveland, which is unusual when you consider his best years and over half of his career production came in Toronto. The fifth and final three-homer game came in 1993 with the Blue Jays. The opponent? Coincidentally, it was the Indians.
Carlos Delgado: Another Blue Jays slugger, Delgado saw all five of his three-homer affairs come with Toronto - for context, no one else in Blue Jays history has more than two such games. His first two came against Texas in 1998 and 1999, almost exactly one year apart. He then did it twice in a span of two weeks in 2001. He's also the only person on this list to have a four home run game included, which came in 2003 against Tampa Bay. For his career the first baseman hit 473 career bombs.
Dave Kingman: He was a 21st century player in a 1970s game: a lot of (long) home runs, a lot of strikeouts. His first three-homer game came in his first stint with the Mets in 1976. He did it three times between 1978-79 with the Cubs, the first of which was a go-ahead 15th inning home run, and his final performance came with the Athletics in 1984. He, Mize and A-Rod are the only players on the list to have a three-homer game for three different teams. Kingman finished his career with 442 home runs, including seven seasons of at least 30 homers.
Mark McGwire: The first baseman's sensational rookie season in 1987 was highlighted by his three-home run performance against Cleveland, part of a then-record 49-homer campaign. It would be nearly eight years before McGwire accomplished the feat a second time, in 1995 against Boston (after hitting two homers the night before). Each of his final three such games came in his time with the Cardinals, including two in his (in)famous 1998 season, when he hit 70 long balls: once in April against Arizona and once in May versus Philadelphia. McGwire finished his career with 583 home runs, with eight seasons of at least 39.
Alex Rodriguez: In all three of A-Rod's stops he had multiple 40-home run seasons (three with Seattle, three with Texas and two with New York), so it's fitting that he had a three-homer game for all three clubs. The first came with the Mariners in 2000 against the Blue Jays, capped by an eighth-inning grand slam. He again versus Toronto in 2002 with the Rangers, as part of his 57-homer season. The final three came in pinstripes: taking Bartolo Colon deep three times in his MVP 2005 season, hitting homers off three different Royals in 2010, and lastly in 2015 against the Twins. The last of those came just a few days shy of his 40th birthday, making him the fourth-oldest player with a three-home run game. The only ones older are Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and Jason Giambi.