May 13, 2007: Giants rookie Fred Lewis hits for the cycle in his 16th career game

A Mother’s Day crowd of 24,243 at Denver’s Coors Field saw San Francisco Giants rookie center fielder Fred Lewis become just the seventh major-league player to hit his first career home run as part of a cycle.1 The 26-year-old Lewis also cracked his first career triple and second career double. He had been with the Giants for just four days after being recalled from the minors as a replacement for Dave Roberts, who was recovering from elbow surgery.

A second-round draft choice of the Giants in June 2002, Lewis spent parts of 2004, 2005, and 2006 with the Fresno Grizzlies, San Francisco’s Triple-A affiliate.2 He made his major-league debut as a September 2006 call-up. Mostly used as a late-inning replacement, Lewis had appeared in just 13 games (with one start), batting in only eight of those. He collected five hits in 11 at-bats (10 were singles), giving him a .455 batting average.

The game on May 13, 2007, was Lewis’s third start of the season and the fourth of his career. After going 1-for-4 in each of the first two games of the four-game series against the Colorado Rockies, the left-handed-batting Lewis sat out on May 12 as Colorado lefty Jeff Francis got the start. Lewis was back in the lineup for the series finale, leading off, and he led San Francisco to a 15-2 victory over the Rockies, clubbing five hits in six at-bats and becoming the 25th Giants player to hit for the cycle.3

San Francisco (18-18) and Colorado (16-21) were in fourth and fifth place respectively in the National League West Division standings, but the season was only a little over a month old. The Giants struggled to keep up with the division opponents, so five different regulars sat out for San Francisco. Giants skipper Bruce Bochy decided to give Barry Bonds, Ray Durham, Rich Aurelia, Bengie Molina, and Randy Winn a day off. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “$35 million worth of payroll lounged on the bench.”4

Colorado had been hampered by “injuries, mismatched parts, and slow offensive starts,”5 but the 2007 Rockies, as it happened, still had their best games ahead of them.6

Right-hander Matt Cain, tagged with a “hard luck”7 label by the San Francisco Examiner, started for the Giants. The Giants were 1-6 in Cain’s previous starts, despite his 3.40 ERA and .194 opponents’ batting average. His teammates had scored a total of only 20 runs in those seven games. The 22-year-old Cain, San Francisco’s first-round selection in June 2002, had pitched at least six innings in six of his seven starts. He was looking for his second win of the season.

Opposing the Giants was another righty, 25-year-old Taylor Buchholz. Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies, Buchholz had been traded as a minor leaguer to the Houston Astros for Billy Wagner.8 He made 22 appearances in 2006, his rookie season, after which the Astros dealt him to Colorado.9 He started 2007 in the bullpen but transitioned to a starting role after four appearances. In his previous outing, Buchholz pitched six scoreless frames against the St. Louis Cardinals and left the game with a 1-0 lead, but the Rockies bullpen lost the game in the seventh. Like Cain, Buchholz was searching for his second win, but his ERA (5.82) was more than two runs per game higher than his opponent’s.

Lewis lined the second pitch of the game into left field for a double. Omar Vizquel, the Giants’ 40-year-old shortstop, bunted for a hit, putting runners at the corners. Buchholz was called for a balk, allowing Lewis to score.

San Francisco put two more runners on base in the second but did not capitalize. Lewis struck out to end the inning. In the fourth, however, he capitalized on a two-out opportunity. Daniel Ortmeier and Kevin Frandsen each singled with one out. After Cain struck out, Lewis settled into the batter’s box. He swung at a 1-and-0 pitch and drove Buchholz’s offering over the left-field fence. Another run came home when Vizquel singled and scored on Pedro Feliz’s double to left. San Francisco led, 5-0.

In the fifth, the Giants struck again. Mark Sweeney, starting in left field for Bonds, led off with a double to right. Buchholz struck out the next two batters, but Frandsen smashed a triple to right, scoring Sweeney. Then Cain helped his own cause with an RBI single.

That brought Colorado skipper Clint Hurdle to the mound. He called to the bullpen, and journeyman Tom Martin relieved Buchholz. The first batter Martin faced was Lewis, who tripled into the left-center gap, driving in Cain to make it 8-0.

Staked to an early lead, Cain had shut out the Rockies through four innings. Willy Taveras doubled with two men on in the bottom of the fifth, bringing home Colorado’s first run. Cain pitched one more scoreless frame, allowing just one run on five hits and three walks over six innings of work.

San Francisco added on in the top of the sixth. Alberto Àrias was now pitching for the Rockies. He got two quick groundouts, but then his control left him. The next four batters reached (a single and three walks), and it was 9-1 in favor of the visitors.

Lewis led off the seventh inning, needing a single to complete the cycle. He recalled, “I wasn’t thinking about it. I didn’t hear anything from the guys in the dugout. There were fans behind the on-deck circle that were yelling at me that I needed a single.”10

He delivered, lining a Denny Bautista pitch to right-center and stopping at first base for the cycle. Lewis ended up with two singles in the inning, as the Giants sent 11 batters to the plate.11 Bautista faced eight, giving up seven hits and six runs. Zach McClellan took over, and after he retired a batter, Lewis got his second hit of the inning off the 28-year-old rookie reliever.12 McClellan and Manny Corpas kept San Francisco off the scoreboard in the eighth and ninth innings, but the Giants had scored 15 runs.

Colorado tallied once more in the bottom of the ninth. Veteran left-hander Steve Kline pitched the final frame for San Francisco. Yorvit Torrealba singled and, with two outs, advanced to second on defensive indifference. Chris Iannetta singled to right for the Rockies’ seventh hit, plating Torrealba, before 42-year-old Steve Finley, in the final season of his 19-year career, grounded out to end the game.

The first thing Lewis did after the game was call his mother. “This was my Mother’s Day gift to mom,” he told reporters. “I called her to tell her I hadn’t gotten her anything – until now.”13 In hitting for the cycle, Lewis outscored (3) the Rockies by himself, drove in more runs (4) than the entire Rockies team, and almost outhit (5) them, too. He said, “I never would have thought I’d have a day like today. I am just glad to get into the lineup.”14 Bochy commented that he expected Lewis to play the next four to six weeks, until Roberts returned.

Lewis kept hitting, authoring a seven-game hitting streak. His batting average reached .375 before falling again. Roberts returned to the San Francisco lineup on June 9, playing center field and putting Lewis back on the bench.

Lewis hit three home runs in 2007, which turned out to be his official rookie season.15 In each game with a home run, he had exactly four runs batted in. He finished the season batting .287 with 19 RBIs in 58 games, and 12 of those runs batted in came in three games.

The Giants had a season-best 22 hits and 15 runs, escaping Colorado with a series split.16 Bochy told reporters, “It was a big day for us, putting the kids in there, giving the regulars a rest, and winning the ballgame.”17 The victory gave San Francisco a 19-18 record, but the Giants lost nine of their next 15 games and never recovered. They finished last in the NL West. The Rockies lost five of their next seven games, but a seven-game win streak foreshadowed a surge of 21 wins in 22 games in September and October, including postseason play, that yielded the franchise’s first-ever NL pennant.

With his achievement, Lewis became the first of three batters to hit for the cycle in 2007.18 Through the 2024 season, only one more Giants batter (Pablo Sandoval) has hit for the cycle. It took place on September 15, 2011, also against the Rockies, also at Coors Field.

Lewis spent two more seasons with the Giants, batting a combined .273 in 255 games. He then played the next three years for three different teams (the Toronto Blue Jays in 2010, the Cincinnati Reds in 2011, and the New York Mets in 2012), and both his major-league playing time and offensive statistics diminished each season. He played in Japan, for the Hiroshima Carp, in 2013 and then for three different clubs in the independent Atlantic League until 2016, when he played his final professional game, for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Bruce Slutsky for his suggestion to provide some cycle-completing statistics.

Sources  

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B05130COL2007.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200705130.shtml

Notes

1 On June 13, 1918, St. Louis Cardinals rookie Cliff Heathcote hit for the cycle in just his sixth major-league game, collecting his first career homer, triple, and double. Before Lewis, the other players who hit their first home run while completing the cycle were Chippy McGarr (Philadelphia Athletics, September 23, 1886), Bill Van Dyke (Toldeo Maumees, July 5, 1890), Bill Hassamaer (Washington Senators, June 13, 1894), Heathcote, Gary Ward (Minnesota Twins, September 18, 1980), and Luke Scott (Houston Astros, July 28, 2006). On July 28, 2024, Xavier Edwards (Miami Marlins) joined this group.

2 Lewis had originally been drafted in the 20th round in 2000 by the Montreal Expos, but he did not sign. Two years later, while at Southern University and A&M College (in Baton Rouge, Louisiana), Lewis was drafted again (with the 66th overall pick by the Giants), and this time he signed.

3 Lewis became the ninth San Francisco player to hit for the cycle; 16 previous cycles had come when the Giants called New York home. Mike Tiernan of the National League’s New York Giants hit for the cycle on August 25, 1888, against the Philadelphia Phillies. According to several sources, Tiernan is also given credit for completing the cycle against the Cincinnati Reds on June 28, 1890, which would have been the second time in his career. The Reds won that game 12-3, but a careful inspection of the newspapers shows that Tiernan was 2-for-4 in that game with a single and a home run; see box scores at (1) “Knocked Out of the Box,” Philadelphia Times, June 29, 1890: 2; (2) “The Reds Pounded Rusie’s Curves,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1890: 3; and (3) “Cincinnati 12, New York 3,” Boston Globe, June 29, 1890: 8). The Globe gives Tiernan credit for three base hits. Other box scores support the fact that Tiernan did not get four hits in this game against the Reds. Perhaps he did hit for the cycle a second time in his career. If so, it was not on June 28, 1890. If Tiernan did not get a second cycle for the Giants, Lewis’s rare event would become the 24th in Giants franchise history.

4 Henry Schulman, “Cycle of Life: Lewis, Youth Rip Rockies,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 2007: D1

5 Troy E. Renck, “Mother’s Day Mayhem,” Denver Post, May 14, 2007: D1.

6 Percentagewise, San Francisco had its best month in April, and the team was actually tied for first place for one day. The Giants finished this series with the Rockies with a 19-18 record. Then they won just 52 of their final 125 contests to finish in the division cellar. The Rockies were 25-29 at the end of May (fourth place in the division), but they won 65 of 109 games to finish the season in second place, earning a wild-card spot and eventually playing in the 2007 World Series.

7 Arnie Stapleton, “Lewis’ Cycle Leads Way,” San Francisco Examiner, May 14, 2007: 43.

8 On November 3, 2003, Buchholz was traded by the Phillies with Ezequiel Astacio and Brandon Duckworth to the Astros for Wagner.

9 On December 12, 2006, Buchholz was traded by the Astros with Jason Hirsh and Willy Taveras to the Rockies for Miguel Asencio and Jason Jennings.

10 Stapleton. In the known sequences of cycles (335 out of 348 occurrences, as of the end of the 2024 regular season), there have been 68 times that a single was the fourth hit (20.30 percent). That is by far the lowest percentage of the final hit required. A double was the fourth hit in 24.48 percent of cycle games, a triple in 30.15 percent, and a home run in 25.07 percent. These do not include the five potential cycles in Negro Leagues games, as the hit sequences in all of those games are all currently unknown.

11 Zach McClellan entered in relief after the Giants had plated their sixth run of the inning off Bautista, who had retired just one of the eight hitters he faced. McClellan retired two of the next three batters, but in between the outs, he allowed Lewis’s second single of the inning.

12 This was the 12th and final game of McClellan’s major-league career. Drafted by the Kansas City Royals as a starting pitcher in 2000, McClellan pitched in the Royals’ minor leagues until 2004, when he was traded with minor leaguer Chris Fallon and cash to the Rockies for Justin Huisman. He spent 2004 through 2006 in the Rockies farm system, transitioning to a reliever’s role. After three games with Triple-A Colorado Springs (Pacific Coast league), McClellan was called up. This game proved his undoing, even though he threw just 15 pitches. On May 18 McClellan was placed on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation. He didn’t pitch again in 2007. Granted free agency after the season, he re-signed with Colorado on November 14, 2007, but he never made it back to the majors. See “Notes,” Fort Collins Coloradoan, May 19, 2007: 29.

13 Stapleton. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Lewis had sent his mother, Vivian, a dozen red roses before the game. Printed in “Rookie Hits for Cycle as Giants Blast Rockies,” Sacramento Bee, May 14, 2007: C3.

14 Stapleton.

15 Lewis homered on May 13, June 1, and July 4. He went a combined 10-for-15 (.667) and slugged 1.467 in those three games.

16 San Francisco scored double-digit runs in only six other games in 2007.

17 Schulman.

18 The others were Mark Ellis (Oakland Athletics, June 4, against the Boston Red Sox) and Aubrey Huff (Baltimore Orioles, June 29, against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim).