Saturday, June 23, 2012
Jim Thome: all-time walk-off homer king
Posted by Chris JaffeYesterday, on June 23, 2012, Jim Thome made history.
In the bottom of the ninth in a Phillies-Rays game tied 6-6, the veteran slugger hit a pinch-hit solo walk-off home run to end the game.
It’s the 13th regular season walk-off home run of Thome’s career—more than anyone else in baseball history. Previously, he was tied with a handful of other great sluggers with 12. Here’s the all-time leader board:
Batter Walk-offs Jim Thome 13 Babe Ruth 12 Jimmie Foxx 12 Stan Musial 12 Frank Robinson 12 Mickey Mantle 12
A longer list of leaders can be found here.
Now Thome stands alone atop the all-time leaders.
Granted, Mickey Mantle has 13 if you include the postseason as he hit one in a World Series, but we never mix postseason stats with regular season stats in any other category, so why here? The next best among active players is David Ortiz, with 10.
Thome is No.1 in the clutchest sort of home run of them all. Congrats, Mr. Thome.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail. Oh, and now he's on twitter.