How Rare are Three-Straight Walk Off Homers?

After seeing the Dodgers sweep Colorado out of town on three-straight walk off homers this past weekend, I flashed back to when the Tigers also hit three-straight walk offs back in 2004.

Adding to the Dodgers’ story is that each game winning home run was hit by a different player … each a rookie. Three rookies have never hit back-to-back-to-back walk offs before, making the feat extremely rare.

This got me thinking about walk offs and created a few questions in my mind. Have any other teams hit 3-straight walk offs between 2004 and now? What is the record for most consecutive walk offs? How rare are walk off homers?

I will answer these questions plus more today as we dig through the recent history of walk offs.

Three Straight Walk Off Home Runs

Since the Tigers won on three-straight walk-off home runs during a 72-90 2004 season, a grand total of 2 other teams have repeated the feat.

One was the Dodgers last weekend and the other was back in 2013 when the Texas Rangers won on three-straight walk off homers to sweep the Angels.

That’s it. That’s the list.

Since 2004, only 3 teams have hit 3-straight walk off homers. No team in the history of the game has ever managed 4 straight. The Dodgers fell short on Monday against Arizona.

An event happening only 3 times since 2004 is quite rare. You know what else has only happened 3 times since 2004? A player hitting 4 home runs in a game.

Three Straight Walk Offs of Any Kind

I became curious how frequently teams won on 3-straight walk offs of any kind, not just home runs. Turns out that this feat has now occurred 9 times since 2004.

I wanted to compare this number to other rare feats. Perfect games since 2004? There have been 7. No-hitters since 2004? There have been 46.

Okay, so winning on three-straight walk offs is slightly more common than pitching a perfect game but far less common than throwing a no-no.

How about some more context? Just for fun, I looked up how often certain rare baseball feats were accomplished in the MLB since the Tigers hit their 3-consecutive walk offs.

Here is what I found.

Feat	# Since 2004
Perfect Games	7
No-Hitters	46
4 HR in Game	3
2 Grand Slams in Game	1
2 Triple Plays in Game	0
6 Hits in Game	17

Josh Willingham is one of only 13 players in history to ever hit 2 grand slams in a game. The man only had 6 GS in his career. One-third of all his grand slams came in one ballgame back in 2009.

Turning two triple plays in a game is even rarer. This has only happened once in history. The Minnesota Twins turned two triple plays in a game back in 1990 … and still lost the game.

Recording 6 hits in a contest is much more achievable than I initially thought. No one has done it yet in 2019, but we have seen at least one 6-hit game in 5 of the past 6 seasons.

When something fun and unusual happens, I like to enjoy it in the proper perspective. Watching 3 rookies hit walk off home runs is something that we will likely never see again. I love baseball.