These 15 hitters are thankful for the luckiest hits of '24

These 15 hitters are thankful for the luckiest hits of '24

2:19 AM UTC

Everyone can find something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving … especially these hitters.

Not every home run is a no-doubter. Not every base hit is a scorched line drive. Sometimes, the batter just gets lucky. Let's look back at some of the most fun lucky hits of the year.

Here are 15 of the luckiest hits of the 2024 MLB season.

1) , Rockies -- April 20

Fielders lose balls in the sun every year. But losing a ball in the snow? That you don't see every day. Believe it or not, it happened this year.

In April, the Rockies and Mariners played a game while it was snowing at Coors Field. Bouchard skied a popup to first base. Ty France lost track of the ball in the snow -- white baseball, white snowflakes -- and it dropped to the infield untouched, giving Bouchard a once-in-a-lifetime kind of base hit.

Based on his 88.5 mph exit velocity and 73 degree launch angle, Bouchard had a hit probability of (essentially) zero percent. But hit probability doesn't apply to snow baseball.

2) , Blue Jays -- June 27

Turner ended up with a hit on a 35.2 mph cue shot down the first-base line -- that's 60 mph below Statcast's hard-hit threshold of 95-plus -- thanks to the ball playing tricks on Yankees rookie first baseman Ben Rice. Turner's trickler looked like it was spinning foul, and Rice followed it down the line to try to let it go foul, but it never did. Rice still might have gotten Turner out … except the ball doinked perfectly off the first-base bag and bounced away from him, allowing Turner to reach safely with an RBI single.

3) , Rays -- June 16

Turner wasn't the only one to end up with a lucky hit thanks to the ball hitting a base. Arozarena did the same thing two weeks earlier, only he whacked a ball off the second-base bag for his own RBI single against the Braves. It should have been an inning-ending groundout, as Ozzie Albies was perfectly positioned to field the ball up the middle … until it caromed off the bag in front of him and bounced high over his head and into shallow left-center field.

4) , Phillies -- Aug. 24

Here's one more crazy bounce. This one wasn't off a base, it was off the lip of the infield grass. Stott's routine chopper to second turned into a single when the ball kicked high into the air, over Royals second baseman Michael Massey's head and into the outfield. Stott gets lots of ground ball hits -- 50 of his 124 total hits in 2024, over 40%, were on the ground -- but even he couldn't expect this one.

5) , Orioles -- July 14

This might be the zaniest walk-off of the year. The Yankees had this game won against the Orioles, twice, but two crazy plays gave the O's the win. First, Anthony Volpe booted a ground ball at short that extended the game with two outs in the ninth inning. Then, this:

Mullins flared a line drive to left field that Alex Verdugo should have tracked down easily. He had a 99% catch probability on the play, needing to cover just 46 feet in 4.4 seconds to get to the ball. But Verdugo broke in instead of back, and by the time he recovered, it was far too late. Verdugo went sprawling to the turf as he tried in vain to get back to the baseball, which landed beyond his reach and gave Mullins a walk-off double.

6) , Red Sox -- June 1

Home runs can be lucky, too, especially when they're a "stadium special" -- a homer that would only be gone in the exact ballpark it's hit in. Valdez hit a true stadium special home run at Fenway Park in June, tucking a fly ball just inside Pesky's Pole in the right-field corner.

Valdez's home run was hit just 86.5 mph, and traveled just 318 feet. It was both the softest-hit and the shortest over-the-fence home run of the 2024 MLB season, and it would be a homer only at Fenway.

7) , Giants -- May 12

Wade got lucky that he hit this ball at Oracle Park. The right-field wall in San Francisco is high, but not deep … and Wade hit the type of skyscraper that's perfectly designed to clear that exact wall. His home run against the Reds had a 50 degree launch angle, giving it enough height to clear the wall down the right-field line even with a projected distance of just 321 feet.

That's not just the highest home run of the 2024 season -- it's tied for the highest home run of the entire Statcast era. There have only been three homers hit with a 50 degree launch angle: Wade's in 2024, Xander Bogaerts' on Aug. 13, 2021, and J.D. Martinez's on May 15, 2015.

8) , Cardinals -- June 16

Wrigley Field is always good for some wacky hits, thanks to the winds that carry the baseball all over the place. This one was a wind-blown home run that had no business being a home run. Pagés barely cleared the ivy in left field with a 93.6 mph, 36-degree fly ball -- not a hard-hit ball, which has to be at least 95 mph.

In the Statcast era, there have been nearly 500 balls hit between 93-94 mph at a 36 degree launch angle, the same as Pagés'. Those balls are hits less than 10% of the time, and are home runs only about 5% of the time. Pagés' homer is almost always a flyout, unless you catch the Wrigley wind just right.

9) , Brewers -- April 20

Hoskins has a big slugger's big swing. But in this game against the Cardinals, he got a hit on about as un-Hoskins-like a swing as you could imagine. Hoskins dinked a single over a drawn-in infield -- just off a leaping Paul Goldschmidt's glove -- with a half-swing that had no business even putting the ball in the air, let alone into the outfield. Hoskins' bat speed was just 34.1 mph, the lowest tracked bat speed on any base hit all season that wasn't a ground ball.

10) , Orioles -- Sept. 20

Two different outfielders had a 99% catch probability on this fly ball by Henderson leading off the game: Tigers center fielder Parker Meadows, and right fielder Kerry Carpenter. Either one could have caught it; instead, each looked to the other to make the play, and neither did. Henderson's ball fell between them for a double. In a year when the Orioles star had 75 extra-base hits, this one was the biggest gift.

11) , Royals -- Sept. 14

Speaking of superstar hitters getting freebies they don't need -- here's Witt, the AL MVP runner-up, hitting his 43rd double of the season. But the only reason it was a hit at all was because Oneil Cruz, whom the Pirates converted from a shortstop to a center fielder late in the year, took a full-circle route to the baseball.

Cruz started back on the ball before looping all the way around and back in, and he couldn't make a shoestring catch. It's hard to blame him when it was just his 15th career game in center, but Witt still got his lucky extra-base hit.

12) , D-backs -- Aug. 16

Four different Rays could have caught this 226-foot-high popup by Suárez. It was in the air for 7.8 seconds -- the longest hang time on any base hit in MLB all season. None of them did.

Left fielder Dylan Carlson and center fielder Kameron Misner both had a 99% catch probability, and shortstop José Caballero and second baseman Christopher Morel could both have easily tracked it down, too. Instead, all four Rays jogged toward the general vicinity of the ball, craning their necks toward the Tropicana Field roof. At the last moment, Caballero and Morel both went to make the play … and collided with each other, knocking the ball free and resulting in a popup double for Suárez.

The Rays did get a little luck of their own on the play, though, as they managed to throw out Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who was trying to score all the way from first on the play.

13) , Phillies -- May 27

Here's another popup that nobody got. The highest launch angle on a base hit all season belongs to Schwarber, who hit a single at 84 degrees -- almost perfectly straight up in the air (that would be 90 degrees) against the Giants.

Schwarber's hit traveled just 18 feet out in front of home plate, but none of the Giants infielders could get a bead on it, and it dropped. But Schwarber's good fortune didn't stop there. The ball actually spun back into foul territory behind home plate after it hit the ground, which would have made it a foul ball … except it touched Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, who was standing in fair territory. Fair ball, base hit.

14) , Nationals -- June 1

García was the beneficiary of a blooper you don't see often from a Major League fielder. On June 1 against the Guardians, he hit a routine fly ball to right field, but as Johnathan Rodriguez jogged in to make the catch, his feet slipped out from under him. Rodriguez plopped to the turf, and a second later, so did the baseball … only 16 feet away from where he'd started the play. García ended up with a hit on a fly ball where Rodriguez had a 99% catch probability.

15) , Dodgers -- World Series Game 5

Let's finish it off with the Lucky Hit of the Year: Betts' ground ball to first base in the infamous fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series.

Betts squibbed this ball just 49.8 mph off the bat at a -12 degree launch angle -- that's a hit probability of just 11%, making it the least likely hit of the World Series. It should have been an out. And you know the rest.

Anthony Rizzo fielded the ball at first base. Gerrit Cole didn't cover the bag. And Rizzo couldn't make it himself, allowing Betts to scamper through with a base hit that extended the inning, set up the Dodgers' five-run rally and helped them clinch the World Series. Betts can be extra thankful for his lucky hit, since it brought the Dodgers a championship.