Baseball Reference Blog

Using the PI Team Batting Game Finder, I searched for games in which all of any given team's hits were home runs. I did this by setting hits = 1 and HR = 1, then hits =2 and HR = 2, etc.

All data is 1957-present.

Here's a summary. Click on the links to see the individual games for each case.

Hits/HR Times achieved
----------------------
1	62
2	30
3	5
4	2
5	1
6	1
7+	0

It was the Yankees in 2004 who had five hits, all going for four bases. As the box score for that game shows, they were all solo shots, leading the Yankees to a 5-1 victory. that game was one of Jose Contreras' best starts for the Yankees, before they traded him (after just 3 more starts.)

And that 6 hit/homer game? That was the Indians over the Rangers in June of 1989. You could guess all day and all night and probably not come up with the full list of who hit the homers. You might guess correctly that this was one of Joe Carter's 3-HR games (did you know he did that five times? Wow.) And Cory Snyder hit one. You might even get that Pete O'Brien hit one. But you would probably not come up with Andy Allanson, who hit the only non-solo shot of the game, a 2-run job.

I did a little extra work, too. Here is the same chart as above, but where all the hits can be of any extra-base variety. Click the links if you want to see the details.

H/XBH   Times achieved
----------------------
1	202
2	198
3	140
4	67
5	52
6	17
7	4
8	1
9	1
10+	0

Box scores for the 8-hit game and the 9-hit game. Both of those games are interesting to look at. The 9-hit game, for instance, was in 1998 by the Braves, and all 9 hits were doubles!

Related posts:

All of a team’s hits (or both teams’ hits) are XHB

Do-over: All of a team’s hits are homers

Both teams score more runs than hits

Most homers in a season where all hits are homers

Both Teams More Runs Than Hits In Same Game