One of the great things about going to a Major League ballpark -- on a cold Tuesday night in April, a hot Sunday afternoon in August or all the other days in between -- is that you never know when you are going to see history happen. (Just ask the folks at Yankee Stadium last Saturday.) You never know when a player is going to have the game of his life and accomplish something that will be remembered for years to come.
The most celebrated of these events don¡¯t happen too often, but that¡¯s what makes it special. And when the stars align just right? It¡¯s worth the wait.
With most of the 2025 season still ahead of us, here are seven fantastic feats we are keeping a particularly close watch for, plus a wild guess at a player in the best position to accomplish each one. (Feats are listed in reverse order of the most recent to occur, and numbers cited are from AL/NL history.)
1. Perfect game
Last: Domingo Germ¨¢n (Yankees) -- June 28, 2023
Yes, this is the most recent feat on this list. But don¡¯t let that fool you. Prior to Germ¨¢n, nobody had twirled a perfecto in nearly 11 years, since F¨¦lix Hern¨¢ndez in August 2012. And there still have been only 24 of them, going all the way back to the 19th Century.
On one hand, the rarity of any sort of complete game hurts the chances for a perfecto in 2025. (There were only 24 complete games of nine-plus innings in 2024.) On the other hand, perfection (which requires zero baserunners) is a pretty good way to beat the odds and keep your bullpen at bay. It still requires quite a bit of good fortune and strong defense behind you, though.
2025 candidate: Logan Webb, Giants
The third-most-recent perfect game on record (Matt Cain¡¯s in 2012) came in San Francisco, which can be a comfy place for pitchers to work. That¡¯s certainly true for Webb (2.78 career ERA at Oracle Park), who has thrown a shutout there in both of the past two seasons. With Willy Adames now joining Matt Chapman on the left side of the Giants¡¯ infield, any game when Webb has his sinker working could involve a lot of quick outs.
2. Four-homer game
Last: J.D. Martinez (D-backs) -- Sept. 4, 2017
A four-homer game is more rare, historically speaking, than a perfect game. Only 18 players have done it. The list includes some all-time sluggers (Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt), a number of other excellent hitters ¡ and some names you wouldn¡¯t expect. That includes Scooter Gennett, whose four homers for the Reds on June 6, 2017, represented nearly 5% of his career total. So you don¡¯t necessarily have to be a legend of the game to rip a quartet of roundtrippers.
From 2018-24, there were exactly 100 games in which a player hit three home runs -- but none of four. It¡¯s hardly an unprecedented drought, however, even in recent history. MLB went eight full seasons without one from 2004-11 and 1994-2001. If we¡¯re getting really greedy, though? How about the first five-homer game in history?
2025 candidate: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
Aaron Judge nearly did this already and remains an obvious answer here, but it¡¯s hard to go with anyone other than Ohtani. Not only has he averaged 45 homers per season since 2021, including 54 last year, but Ohtani has a habit of rising to the occasion and accomplishing anything he sets his mind to. At this point, it would be silly to doubt him.
3. Seven-hit game
Last: Brandon Crawford (Giants) -- Aug. 8, 2016
A six-hit game, while rare, isn¡¯t quite rare enough for this list. Ohtani famously had one last year -- while clinching his 50-50 campaign -- and going back to 2013, there has been at least one in nine of the past 11 full seasons. A seven-hit game though? That¡¯s happened only six times on record, including five in the Modern Era (since 1900). Four of those instances required extra innings (at least 12 in each case), while two others involved the batter¡¯s team scoring at least 22 runs.
With the automatic runner rule limiting the number of extra innings in today¡¯s game, and batting average down, this is an even tougher task to pull off than at most points in baseball history. In 2024, for example, there were only eight games in which at least one player came to the plate seven or more times (20 total player games). There were only four player games with at least seven official at-bats.
2025 candidate: Luis Arraez, Padres
The guy with back-to-back 200-hit seasons and three straight seasons batting at least .314 is as good a candidate as any, although this will be highly dependent on which teams wind up in high-scoring, extra-inning games. But Arraez bats high up in a good lineup, rarely walks or strikes out, and handles the bat well.
4. 20-strikeout game
Last: Max Scherzer (Nationals) -- May 11, 2016
Six years ago, for the third anniversary of Scherzer¡¯s masterpiece, we looked at the increasing difficulty of pulling off that feat. And, well, it¡¯s only gotten more difficult. It¡¯s simply a math problem: Striking out 20 (in nine innings) leaves very little room for non-strikeout outcomes. Meanwhile, K¡¯s drive up pitch counts, and starters throw fewer pitches than ever before.
Only five times has a pitcher reached 20 in nine innings, and Scherzer, with 119 pitches, had the lowest pitch count in that group. Meanwhile, the most pitches thrown in any start in 2024 was 118 by Toronto¡¯s Kevin Gausman. Only 33 individual starts cracked the 110-pitch mark. With that sort of workload, the margin for error is extremely slim. In fact there hasn¡¯t even been a 16-K outing since Lance Lynn¡¯s on June 18, 2023.
2025 candidate: Dylan Cease, Padres
It¡¯s tempting to go with, say, Paul Skenes, playing the role of Kerry Wood. But Cease gets a bump as a more established veteran who likely will have a bit more leeway to venture deep into a game in pursuit of a milestone. The 29-year-old righty has 22 career double-digit strikeout games, including five a year ago, when he joined the Reds¡¯ Hunter Greene as the only MLB pitchers to throw 110 pitches in a game three times.
5. Unassisted triple play
Last: Eric Bruntlett (Phillies) -- Aug. 23, 2009
This is the only entry on this list that comes down to a single play rather than statistics accumulated over the course of a game. It also involves by far the most luck of any of them -- or at least being in the right place at the right time. Only 15 players have recorded an unassisted triple play, and that¡¯s not surprising when you consider the specific circumstances required. There have to be at least two runners on base and no outs, and they tend to follow a common script from there: 1) Runners on the move, 2) Line drive to a middle infielder, who can quickly snag the ball, step on the second base and tag the runner charging over from first.
2025 candidate: Ezequiel Tovar, Rockies
It¡¯s not just that the third-most recent unassisted triple play was turned by a young Rockies shortstop (Troy Tulowitzki in 2007). It¡¯s also that the 23-year-old Tovar is a good bet to log a lot of innings behind a Rockies pitching staff that figures to allow a ton of baserunners (119 more than any other team in 2024) and a ton of balls in play (229 more), especially at Coors Field. Between that and Tovar¡¯s quickness and athleticism -- he had plus-15 Outs Above Average last season -- that¡¯s as good a recipe as any.
6. Six-stolen base game
Last: Carl Crawford (Rays) -- May 3, 2009
This is one where the circumstances of 2025 baseball actually make this a bit more likely than it would have been in recent history. That¡¯s thanks to the rule changes instituted ahead of the 2023 season -- such as limits on pick-off attempts -- that greased the wheels for stealing bases. In both of the last two full seasons before the change, there were fewer than 2,500 steals across MLB; in the two since then, there have been more than 3,500.
This is still a tall task, however, as evidenced by the fact that no player has swiped more than four bags in a single game since Billy Hamilton had five on June 14, 2015 (and needed extra innings to do so). There are only five games of six steals on record (since 1901), and two of those came from Hall of Famer Eddie Collins in September 1912. Beyond just an aggressive and deft runner, you need someone who can get on the base in the first place, and a high-scoring, close game will maximize both opportunities and incentive.
2025 candidate: Elly De La Cruz, Reds
We¡¯re not going out on much of a limb here, given that De La Cruz led the Majors with 67 steals (and 83 attempts) in 2024, while ranking in the 100th percentile in sprint speed. On a game level, De La Cruz had the most multi-steal games (14), three-steal games (four) and four-steal games (two, as many as all other players combined). The man flies, and perhaps most importantly, he¡¯s never afraid to take off.
7. 11-RBI game
Last: Mark Whiten (Cardinals) -- Sept. 7, 1993
Even 10 RBIs in a game is a fantastic feat, occurring just 16 times in the Modern Era. However, we¡¯re raising the bar because, well, Ohtani knocked in 10 runs in his aforementioned six-hit bonanza last Sept. 19. (It¡¯s also happened three other times since 2017.)
Eleven RBIs, however, is a bar that has remained untouched since Whiten¡¯s shocking four-homer, 12-RBI game more than 30 years ago. Just four players have done it since at least 1901, and all but Whiten did it before integration (1947). Since Whiten, seven players have cracked double digits without notching RBI No. 11.
2025 candidate: Pete Alonso, Mets
Power obviously helps in the push for 11 RBIs, and few can drive the ball out of the park better than the Polar Bear. But racking up RBIs also requires runners on base, and that¡¯s where Alonso really gets a leg up as a highly durable player batting toward the top of a potent lineup. He ranked fifth in the Majors in plate appearances with men on base in 2024 (320), and if anything, that number should go up in 2025, with OBP machine Juan Soto slotting into the lineup between leadoff man Francisco Lindor and Alonso.
BONUS FEATS
Here are a few other fun rarities, of the more niche variety, to keep an eye on.
The nine-inning, sub-80 pitch complete game
Last: Aaron Cook (Rockies) -- July 1, 2008
Since league-wide pitch count data began in 1988, eight pitchers (including Hall of Famers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine) have done this a total of 10 times. Four of those performances -- but not Maddux¡¯s -- were shutouts that qualified as a ¡°Maddux.¡±
2025 candidate: Justin Steele, Cubs
The natural cycle
Last: Gary Matthews Jr. (Rangers) -- Sept. 13, 2006
Of the hundreds of cycles in MLB history, only 16 (14 in the Modern Era) have been ¡°natural.¡± What¡¯s a natural cycle? One in which the player collects his hits in ascending order: single, double, triple, home run.
2025 candidate: Bobby Witt Jr., Royals
The two-slam game
Josh Willingham (Nationals) -- July 27, 2009
Just 13 players have launched two grand slams in a game, including the unique two-slam inning achieved by the elder Fernando Tatis in 1999. From 2010-24, there were 138 player games in which a batter hit a grand slam and had at least one other bases-loaded plate appearance without going deep.
2025 candidate: Aaron Judge, Yankees