Red Sox Wednesday 'HR Cycle' Not So Rare

BRIAN SNYDER, REUTERS

Wednesday night, the Red Sox hit for the "Home Run Cycle" (solo, two-run, three-run and grand slam home runs in one game). Some of us here at the World Wide Headquarters of FenwayNation wondered, "Gee, did this ever happen before?" (Sadly, we always tend to talk that way).

Thanks to WEEI.com's Rob Bradford and Gary Marby, we now know the answer. Apparently, the feat is about as rare as Dice-K having a 30+ pitch count in the first inning—well, not quite, but close. The Sox HR Cycle was not even the first of this year in major league baseball—Colorado pulled it off against the lowly Astros on May 30th. That's less than a month ago! Wasn't this supposed to be the Year of The Pitcher? And, Wednesday's feat was the 8th since the start of 2008. Historically, the Red Sox have done it seven other times:

May 25, 1950 at StL Browns (Zarrilla, Vollmer, Stephens, Dropo)
May 27, 1955 vs Washington (Hatton, Zauchin 3)
July 2, 1972 vs Milwaukee (Fisk, Petrocelli, Fisk 2)
May 22, 1977 vs Milwaukee (Yaz, Evans, Hobson, Scott, Lynn 2)
August 3, 1977 at Seattle (Scott, Hobson, Carbo, Rice 2)
September 1, 1990 vs Yankees (Brunansky, Greenwell, Burks 2)
July 23, 2002 vs Tampa Bay (Nixon, Damon, Ramirez 2, Garciaparra 3)

Thanks again to Rob and Gary!