Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner had an opportunity to become the first player to hit for the cycle for the fourth time in his career when he came to bat in the ninth inning on Friday night. He needed a triple for the feat and admitted after the game that he briefly considered making a drastic decision to get it.
During the Phillies’ 13-0 win over the Atlanta Braves, Turner already had a double in the first inning, a home run in the second and a single in the fourth. With a double-digit deficit, the Braves were pitching outfielder Luke Williams to save the bullpen and finish out the game.
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Williams was just trying to lob strikes, so Turner had to time one of those pitches right. But he also wanted to hit the ball down the right- or left-field line for a chance at the triple he needed.
“A lot of things were going through my head,” Turner told the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast after the game. “I was trying to hit a line drive down the right-field line on the first two pitches.”
After falling behind by two strikes, Turner turned on an inside 52.4 mph pitch and pulled it to left field. He thought he got jammed by the pitch and hit a pop-up, but saw Braves left fielder Alex Verdugo continuing to drift back. So he started to run faster, in case the ball hit the wall. But the fly ball went over the wall for Turner’s second homer of the game.
Has a player ever been disappointed to hit two home runs in a game? Probably not, and Turner wasn’t either. But after scoring the Phillies’ 13th run, he realized that he could have given himself a triple by not touching home plate.
“After I touched home plate — and this thought never crossed my mind before that,” Turner said, via MLB.com. “But you know, the thought of missing the plate — I think that’d be a triple.”
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Turner added that he and his teammates thought the “baseball gods” would have frowned upon such a decision and “it would have been probably the most selfish thing to do in the history of baseball.” So he finished with a 4-for-6 night with two homers, two RBI and a stolen base. Getting that fourth cycle will have to wait for another time.
Five players have hit for the cycle three times, including Turner: the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Christian Yelich, Hall of Famer Adrián Beltré, Babe Herman of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees‘ Bob Meusel.
With the win and the New York Mets losing on Friday, the Phillies regained a half-game lead atop the NL East going into Saturday’s play.
