AMARILLO, Texas – One St. Louis Cardinals prospect gives the baseball phrase “hitting for the cycle,” a whole new meaning behind a historic performance Wednesday evening.
First baseman Chandler Redmond sparked the Springfield Cardinals to a 21-4 victory over the Amarillo Sod Poodles with a five-hit, four-home run and 11-RBI night.
Redmond not only broke Springfield records for the most home runs and RBIs in a single game, but accomplished something only done one other time in professional baseball. That feat would be a home run cycle.
To accomplish that, a player needs to hit a home run in all four possible outcomes… A solo home run, a two-run home run, a three-run home run and a grand slam. It’s different than the standard baseball cycle, which consists of picking up all four possible hits (single, double, triple, home run) in the same game.
It only took Redmond four innings to set himself apart in baseball history. Here’s how he did it…
- Fifth inning: Two-run home run
- Sixth inning: Grand slam
- Seventh inning: Solo home run
- Eight inning: Three-run home run
Redmond also had an RBI single in the first inning. In total, Springfield slugged eight home runs and scored 21 runs on 21 hits in the blowout victory. Redmond accounted for more than half of the Springfield runs scored and half of the team’s home runs/
“This is one I’ll never forget,” said Redmond via Twitter after a career-night Wednesday.
Coincidentally, the only other time this has happened on record in baseball history was from another former Cardinals prospect against a Texas-based team. On July 27, 1998, Tyrone Horne crushed four home runs in cycle fashion to lift the Double-A Arkansas Travelers to a 13-4 victory over San Antonio.
A four home-run game, with or without a home run cycle, is a rare accomplishment in baseball history. It’s been done only 15 times in MLB history, and there hasn’t been one in the major-league level since 2003. On average, a four-home run game has only happened once over every 15,000 games.
To take that a step further and hit a home run cycle requires even more luck. A hitter needs to come up to the plate with four unique situations on the basepaths and go deep when the opportunities allow. After a similar situation happened in college softball in 2019, it was estimated that the odds of home run cycle are 1-in-1.5 billion, or five times less likely than winning the Powerball.