Hitting for the cycle is one of the rarest things a baseball player can do. The odds of doing so are roughly in line with throwing a no-hitter. Hitting a single, double, triple and home run in the same game is a truly incredible feat and only 348 players have done it.
With the MLB postseason upon us, let's examine the number of players who have hit for the cycle in the playoffs.
How many players have hit for the cycle in the MLB playoffs?
Despite MLB being formed 123 years ago, only one player has ever hit for the cycle in a postseason game. And it wasn't a household name.
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Barry Bonds all failed to do it. The man who accomplished the feat was Brock Holt. He did it as a member of the Boston Red Sox during Game 3 of the 2018 American League Division Series. The Red Sox beat the Yankees 16–1 in that game at Yankee Stadium en route to a 3–1 series win.
In that game, Holt singled to center in the fourth inning, then tripled to right later in the same inning as the Red Sox batted around. Holt hit a ground-rule double in the top of the eighth and got another at-bat in the ninth inning, where he hit a home run to complete the cycle. He finished the game 4-for-6 with five RBIs and three runs scored. It was the second cycle of his major league career.
Holt and the Red Sox went on to win the World Series, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Who is Brock Holt?
Holt is a former MLB player who played all over the diamond defensively. He started his big league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, debuting in 2012. In December of that year, Holt was part of a six-player trade between the Pirates and Red Sox. He made his debut with Boston on July 6, 2013. The Sox went on to win the World Series that season but Holt didn't play in the postseason.
Holt was called up again in May 2014 and spent the rest of the season with the team. In 2015, he made the American League All-Star team. For the season, he slashed .280/.349/.379 with two home runs and 45 RBIs. He struggled to stay healthy in 2016 and 2017, but was a regular for the Red Sox again in 2018 as they won another World Series.
Holt never played a full season again and bounced around to the Milwaukee Brewers and Washington Nationals in 2020 and the Texas Rangers in 2021. He signed a minor league deal with the Atlanta Braves in March of 2022, but requested his release a few weeks later. He announced his retirement on October 27, 2022.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Every Player to Hit for the Cycle in the MLB Playoffs.
