Scott Hairston Hits For Cycle, Mets Get Clobbered

Scott Hairston did that cool and meaningless thing where a player gets all the different kinds of hits possible in one game. Sadly, it was not a "natural" cycle, an even more meaningless occurrence made remarkable by the order in which the hits are made. The Mets, on the other hand, did that uncool and relatively meaningful thing where they lose a baseball game. Mets pitchers faced 14 batters and allowed 11 runs in the fifth inning en route to a crushing 18-9 loss to the Rockies.

The silver lining for the Mets is Hairston's cycle-the 10th in franchise history. The Mets are squarely in the middle of the league in terms of compiling these absurd statistical phenomena. Only the Marlins and Padres have not had a player hit a single, a double, a triple and a home run in the same game. The Giants and Pirates have each done it 23 times, with the Cardinals and Red Sox right behind with 20 and 19, respectively. The question then becomes: can we draw any ridiculous conclusions from all this?

The Padres are terrible and have never hit for the cycle, whereas the Pirates are also terrible and lead the Major Leagues in cycles. Meanwhile, the Giants, Cardinals and Red Sox are all recent World Series winners and are also at the top of the league. The conclusion, of course, is that if you are a National League team you need to have won a World Series recently for the cycle to count in the "important things a good team does" column.

Fear not, Mets friends, the team performed another statistical anomaly last night, perhaps more indicative of the franchise's place in history.

The Mets' six errors were one shy of the team record. It was the ninth time in franchise history they had at least six miscues and first since a 10-6 loss to Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 2007. New York had seven errors against Pittsburgh on Aug. 1, 1996.

The Mets have basically had as many games with six errors as they have with a guy compiling four random hits.

Hairston gets cycle but Mets lose 18-9 to Rockies [Fox]