Blue Jays: Cavan Biggio hits for the third cycle in franchise history

Cavan Biggio helped the Blue Jays to an 8-5 win against the Baltimore Orioles last night, and also put himself in their record books with the third cycle in franchise history.

It was a special night for the Blue Jays last night as the picked up their 60th win of the season in Baltimore. However, the win had very little to do with what will make it a memorable evening in franchise history.

That’s because Cavan Biggio made the night his own, becoming the third player in franchise history to hit for the cycle, and the first to do it as a rookie. He joins Kelly Gruber (1989) and Jeff Frye (2001) as the only players to have a home run, a triple, a double, and a second all in the same game.

Biggio started his historic evening with a strikeout in the first inning, but it was all uphill from that point forward. He hit a home run in the third inning against Chandler Shepard to give the Blue Jays the lead at 3-2, and was left at the plate in the 5th inning when Danny Jansen was called out trying to steal to end the frame.

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When he returned to the plate in the sixth inning he lead things off with a single, and then doubled to right field in the 8th inning and eventually came around to score to tie the game at four in the top of the eighth.

From there you wouldn’t expect that he’d come up to the plate in the very next inning, but the Blue Jays put up a four-run rally in the top half of the ninth, and Biggio had an opportunity to put an exclamation point on the win, and on the opportunity in front of him. His deep shot to left-centre was just shy of leaving the yard for his second home run of the night, but he cleared the bases anyway and slid into third base to complete the cycle.

On top of his 4-5 performance with four RBIs, Biggio also stole two bases, bringing his total to 13-13 as a big leaguer. Considering he doesn’t have lightning speed, it shows how intelligent he is on the base paths, and it brings yet another valuable facet to his game to the Blue Jays’ lineup. He also joins his father, Craig Biggio, on the list of big leaguers to accomplish the feat.

Biggio has been hitting well over the last 15 games, posting a .365 batting average and an OPS of 1.276, turning the corner on a difficult stretch for him at the plate that had some people questioning if he was fully ready to take a starting role at the highest level. Tuesday night’s performance may put that discussion to rest altogether, at least for the remainder of this season.