Three-home run games
Betts isn’t your typical slugger but his quick wrists and bat speed give him sneaky power. When he gets hot, his homers tend to come in bunches and he’s no stranger to the multi-home run game. In fact, Betts has five career games with three home runs, the most in franchise history.
His first two times recording this rare achievement came during his breakout 2016 season when he made his first All-Star appearance and finished as the runner-up in the MVP race.
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On May 31, Betts went 3-5 with three home runs and five RBI, providing nearly all the offense the Red Sox needed in a 6-2 win over the Orioles. Betts has always loved hitting at Camden Yards. The 15 career home runs he’s hit in Baltimore are his most in any ballpark outside of Fenway.
Betts followed with his second three-homer game on August 14 of that season. He drove in eight runs on four hits in a 16-2 route of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
At the age of 23, Betts became the youngest player with multiple three-homer games in the same season. He also joined the legendary Ted Williams as the only Red Sox players to do it twice in a season.
In case matching a franchise record wasn’t enough, Betts replicated his multiple three-homer achievement in 2018. He delivered three solo shots in a 10-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels in April. A couple of weeks later, Betts did the same to the Kansas City Royals in a narrow 5-4 victory.
His most recent three-homer game was last July against the New York Yankees. Betts drove in half of Boston’s runs in a 10-5 win. The Bronx Bombers were no match for the Betts Bomber. The Red Sox finished well behind the Yankees in the standings last year but taking three out of four at Fenway in late July sparked a glimmer of hope and Betts was a big part of that brief resurgence.
The first of Mookie’s three home runs against the Yankees led off the bottom of the first inning. Betts owns the franchise record with 20 career lead-off homers.
Seven other players in MLB history have at least five three-homer games. Only Sammy Sosa and Johnny Mize have more in their career (six) and Betts is the only hitter to join this group before the age of 27.