Baseball Trivia

One of the things I like best about baseball is that there are box scores and stats kept for over a hundred years of games and there is nearly no limit to the interesting trivia that you can find.

So yesterday night Carlos Zambrano (P - CHC) was a triple shy hitting for the cycle. This of course led me to wonder if a pitcher had ever hit for the cycle. The answer is sort of a yes and no.

It turns out, that in the 286 times that a player has completed this feat, only one time has that player also pitched in the game. It happened on July 28, 1988 when Jimmy Ryan hit for the cycle in a 21-17 win over the Detroit Wolverines. Interestingly, Ryan also played for the Cubs franchise, which in 1888 was called the Chicago White Stockings. The reason that I said the answer is yes and no is that Ryan started the game in the outfield and only pitched in relief in the game, so no pitcher has ever started a game and hit for the cycle. There were also a few cases early on in the history of baseball of other players hitting for the cycle who also pitched for their teams sometimes, but no other player did it in the same game.

Getting back to Zambrano's attempt, considering he still needed the triple, he probably wasn't really as close as it seems. The triple is probably the hardest part of the cycle for about 90% of major league hitters, and certainly is for Zambrano who only has 3 triples in 507 career at-bats. This isn't a very good rate, but it could be a lot worse. I went and searched through some statistics and found the most career at-bats without a triple for any major league player. Here's the top five:

1. Johnny Estrada (2001-08) 2079 AB
2. Jason Phillips (2001-07) 1382 AB
3. Mark Parent (1986-98) 1303 AB
4. Craig Worthington (1988-96) 1234 AB
5. Ramon Castro* (1999-2009) 1114 AB

*Active this season

One more note about cycles. There have already been three cycles completed this year: Orlando Hudson on 4/13, Ian Kinsler on 4/15, and Jason Kubel on 4/17. Jason Kubel's home run was a grand slam. It was only the seventh time in the history of major league baseball that a player. The most cycles in any season was eight in 1933.

So much trivia.