No. 195 Robin Ventura hit two grand slams in consecutive innings

On September 4, 1995, Robin Ventura turned one Chicago White Sox game into a record-book curiosity. He hit a grand slam in the fourth inning and another in the fifth as the White Sox beat the Texas Rangers 14–3 at The Ballpark in Arlington. 12

Two grand slams in one game already require eight baserunners to arrive at the right time. Ventura got the same crowded situation twice, in consecutive innings, against two different Texas relievers.

The game carried some personal history. Rangers fans had booed Ventura since a 1993 fight in Arlington, when Ventura charged the mound after Nolan Ryan hit him with a pitch. The crowd of 18,036 had a different reason to react in the seventh inning: Ventura had just done something only seven major leaguers had done before him. 3

Ventura's first grand slam came in the fourth inning against Dennis Cook. Frank Thomas had walked to load the bases, and Ventura sent Cook's pitch 423 feet over the right-center-field wall. The home run gave Chicago an 8–2 lead. 1

The moment also changed the shape of Ventura's night. The third baseman had started the game tied with Ron Karkovice and Harold Baines for the White Sox career record with five grand slams. His first blast became No. 6. 3

Cook left after recording two outs in the fourth. Danny Darwin took over for Texas in the fifth, retired the first two Chicago hitters, and then watched Tim Raines and Dave Martinez line back-to-back singles. Frank Thomas walked again. Ventura came up with the bases loaded again. 1

Darwin's pitch became Ventura's second grand slam. The home run landed in the right-field bleachers and pushed the White Sox ahead 13–3. Major League Baseball's video archive preserves the two blasts as a single two-inning sequence. 2

The White Sox added one more run in the eighth. Ventura finished 3-for-5 with a walk, three runs, 10 total bases, and eight RBIs. 1

Ventura became the eighth player in major-league history to hit two grand slams in one game, and the first since Frank Robinson had done it for Baltimore on June 26, 1970. Baseball Almanac's record table identifies Ventura's two slams by inning and pitcher: the fourth against Cook and the fifth against Darwin. 34

The feat belonged to Ventura, but the setup belonged to the White Sox lineup. Raines reached twice in the fifth, Martinez reached before Thomas's walk, and Thomas's presence behind Ventura helped create another bases-loaded plate appearance. A grand slam gives one hitter four RBIs; a second grand slam one inning later requires the rest of the lineup to keep filling every base. 1

Ventura later described the achievement as "kind of a freak thing." The phrase fits because the second slam did not arrive after a long wait or a new game. One inning after the first, the same hitter stood in the same high-pressure situation, and the same four-run answer happened again. 1