Over the course of the 2024 season, there were 48,795 individual player games with at least one plate appearance. There were 20,685 individual pitcher appearances with at least one batter faced.

The vast majority of those produced routine stat lines. A select few truly stand out from the pack.

This is a look at 10 from the latter group: Wild box score lines that don’t come around often -- but did in 2024. Before the calendar flips to 2025, let’s stop and appreciate these rare results.

An unprecedented feat, in unprecedented fashion

Shohei Ohtani (LAD), Sept. 19 at MIA
6-for-6, 4 R, 2 2B, 3 HR, 10 RBIs, 2 SB, 17 TB

Just hitting 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases in the same MLB season would have been enough. Nobody had ever done it before. But Ohtani had something else up his sleeve: Reaching the 50-50 mark with perhaps the greatest single-game performance in MLB history. That’s debatable, of course, but here’s what’s not: As MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince detailed in the story linked above, Ohtani’s box score line in that game broke new ground in at least a half-dozen ways. (For example, it was the first three-homer, two-steal game in history.) Shotime, indeed.

Upstaging Ohtani

Elly De La Cruz (CIN), May 16 at LAD
4-for-4, BB, 3 R, 2B, RBI, 4 SB

There aren’t many players capable of going head to head with Ohtani and wresting the spotlight away from him. But De La Cruz is the sort of dynamic all-around threat who can do exactly that. And did, in this game at Dodger Stadium, a 7-2 Reds win. De La Cruz reached base safely in all five of his trips to the plate, and on three of those occasions, he stole at least one base. (In the fifth inning, he walked, stole second, stole third and scored on a wild pitch.) De La Cruz became the first player since Ichiro Suzuki in 2012 to have four hits and four steals in the same game. As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said afterward, “You try to keep guys like that at bay, but you get caught up at times admiring the talent.”

If you can't beat him ... just give up

José Ramírez (CLE), July 9 at DET
3-for-3, 2 R, 2B, RBI, 2 SB, 3 BB (3 IBB)

Ramírez might not be the traditional sort of hulking slugger -- he’s listed at 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds -- but that doesn’t mean opponents don’t carry a healthy fear of him. The switch-hitter led the AL by drawing 20 intentional walks in 2022 and 22 more in ‘23. While that total dropped to 12 this year, you wouldn’t have known it from how Tigers manager AJ Hinch approached him in this game. After Ramírez singled twice and doubled in his first three plate appearances, Hinch threw up his hands and put up four fingers each of the last three times Ramírez’s turn came up. (First base was also open in each instance, of course.) Paul Goldschmidt back in 2015 is the only other hitter to combine three hits with three intentional passes in the same game, and Goldy didn’t steal any bases as a cherry on top. “That’s a lot,” Hinch said of the IBBs, “but that tells you what I think about Ramírez.”

Packing in the K’s

Blake Snell (SF), July 27 vs. COL
6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 15 K

On Aug. 2, Snell got a monkey off his back, proving once and for all that he could throw a complete game -- and he did it by no-hitting the Reds for good measure. “They can’t say it anymore,” Snell said afterward. “Complete game, shutout, no-hitter. Leave me alone.” In his previous start though, Snell followed his more typical path, piling up strikeouts but leaving after six innings with his pitch count over 100. In this case, Snell was well on his way to joining the highly exclusive list of pitchers with a 20-strikeout game -- he actually was on pace for 22 -- but just didn’t have the longevity. Nonetheless, Snell was the first pitcher since Randy Johnson (as part of a 19-K complete game in 1997) to strike out 15 or more batters through six innings. He was the first in MLB history to finish a game with 15-plus K’s while notching 18 or fewer outs.

Take the pain, give the pain

Gunnar Henderson (BAL), April 24 at LAA
3-for-3, 3 R, 2B, HR, 3 RBIs, SB, 2 HBP

Henderson filled up the stat sheet all season long, posting a 37-homer, 21-steal, 9.1-WAR campaign as a 23-year-old shortstop. One of his best games came out in Anaheim in April, as Henderson reached base safely in all five plate appearances. After Angels lefty Tyler Anderson hit Henderson to open the game, Henderson responded by taking him yard his next time at the plate. A double and a single came next. Henderson had a shot at completing the cycle in the eighth against Carson Fulmer but was plunked again, bookending his day with bruises. It was just the ninth game on record with multiple HBPs and at least three hits, and if you add in Henderson’s stolen base and three RBIs, his performance stands alone.

A trio of triples

Xavier Edwards (MIA), Sept. 27 at TOR
4-for-6, 2 R, 3 3B, 4 RBIs

In a season when not a whole lot went right for the 100-loss Marlins, Edwards’ breakout was a bright spot. In his age-24 season, the switch-hitting shortstop slashed .328/.397/.423 with 31 steals, and the cycle he hit for on July 28 at Milwaukee (which included his first career home run) wasn’t even his rarest achievement. Two months later, Edwards became the first player in 10 years (Yasiel Puig, 2014) and just the seventh in more than 40 years, to rack up three triples in a game. He did it from both sides of the plate, hitting two left-handed and one right-handed. If you throw in Edwards’ four total hits and four RBIs, he joined Denard Span (2010), Lance Johnson (1995) and Craig Reynolds (1981) as the only players to reach each of those numbers in a game in the past 100 seasons.

In play, no runs

Jose Quintana (NYM), Aug. 25 at SD
6 1/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 0 K

There were 486 instances this past season of a pitcher going at least six innings without allowing a run, and unsurprisingly, many featured a high quantity of strikeouts. There were 52 outings with double-digit K’s among them, led by Snell's outing noted above, compared with 50 outings featuring three K’s or fewer. And there was only one, Quintana’s, in which the pitcher did not strike out anyone. In fact, it was the first time since 2017 (Zach Davies) that a pitcher managed to last at least six scoreless innings without the benefit of a punchout. Quintana was a likely candidate though, given that he has posted a 3.39 ERA in 76 starts since 2022, without ever ranking above the 31st percentile in K-rate. He succeeded by inducing a lot of soft contact in this one, with just five hard-hit balls and one barrel out of 22 put in play by the Padres.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait … and strike

Freddie Freeman (LAD), June 17 at COL
1-for-1, 2 R, 5 BB (1 IBB)

Freeman likes to swing the bat, but he also is willing to wait for his pitch. And in this game at Coors Field, he waited for quite a while. In each of Freeman’s first five trips to the plate in a 9-5 Dodgers win, he took a walk, with the fifth being intentional. It wasn’t until the ninth inning that Freeman actually recorded an official at-bat, singling to right field. Not only did the five walks match a Dodgers franchise record, but it was only the 10th time since integration (1947) that a player racked up at least five free passes and one hit in the same game, while reaching base safely in every plate appearance.

Fly me home

Rowdy Tellez (PIT), July 19 vs. PHI
0-for-1, 3 SF, 3 RBIs

Three times in this game at PNC Park, Tellez stepped to the plate with a runner on third base and less than two outs. All three times, he lifted a fly ball deep enough to get that runner home, and it helped the Pirates to an 8-7 victory. It was only the 11th time that a player has recorded three sacrifice flies in a game, and the first since 2008 (Seattle’s Jose Lopez). The only other player to rack up three sac flies in a game with no more than four total plate appearances was the Giants’ Candy Maldonado in 1987. As for Tellez, he had just two other sac flies all season, tying his career high with five.

What a relief

Nick Pivetta (BOS), June 26 vs. TOR
6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 10 K in relief

If you look at Pivetta’s 2024 game log, you see something odd: Only one of his 27 appearances came in relief, and it was a six-inning, 94-pitch outing on June 26 -- four days after a 96-pitch start at Cincinnati and just two days before a 73-pitch start against San Diego. Well, there is a perfectly reasonable (if wacky) explanation. When the Red Sox hosted the Blue Jays on June 26, the game was stopped due to rain with one out in the second inning. Play resumed two months later, but all stats from the game are still credited to the original date.

The wildest part of all this is that catcher Danny Jansen wound up becoming the first player to appear for both teams in the same game, having been traded from Toronto to Boston in between the time the game was suspended and resumed. In fact, Jansen was at the plate against Kutter Crawford when the action stopped; when it continued, he was behind the plate, with Daulton Varsho pinch-hitting for him, against Pivetta. But while Jansen had the oddest day, it was Pivetta who wound up with the standout stat line. Reaching double-digit strikeouts without a walk is excellent but not that rare. (It happened 59 times in 2024.) The fact that Pivetta did it as a reliever (even only just technically speaking) is what stands out, as he was only the ninth to do it in modern AL/NL history. Mark Guthrie had been the last to do so, for the 1995 Twins.