Whether or not he wants to admit it, Washington Nationals shortstop Trea Turner might be destined to become baseball's all-time cycle king.

"I think it's all luck," he said. And yet Turner, a 23-year-old speedster who possesses the kind of rare skill set that practically screams "cycle," already has one to his credit, despite not even having 100 big league starts under his belt. Not for nothing, the very next day after his first cycle, which he notched last week in Colorado, Turner went out and came within a triple of doing it again. Of course, the road to cycle celebrity is paved with missing three-baggers.

"The triple's always the hard one," said Nationals coach Chris Speier, who has two cycles on his résumé, making him one of only 30 big leaguers to accomplish the feat multiple times. For guys like Speier, who averaged fewer than three triples per season during his 19-year career, the three-bagger is no doubt the cycle's worst friend. But for a burner like Turner, who tallied eight triples in 73 games as a rookie in 2016, taking three on a base hit is no big thing. The problem is, guys who boast Turner's speed don't typically have the kind of power needed to check the home run off the cycle to-do list.

"If I had to put my money on anybody, it'd be Trea." Stephen Drew

Until recently, it didn't seem as if Turner, a former first-round pick out of NC State, had that kind of power either. In 268 career minor league games, Turner, who is 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, hit 19 homers, decent for a speed guy but nothing to write home about. Last year though, after getting called up, he surprised everyone by launching 13 homers in less than half a season. Add it all up, and Turner's a cycle just waiting to happen.

"He has the pop and the speed to do it," said teammate Stephen Drew, who's a bit of an expert on the subject. Back on Sept. 1, 2008, when he was with the Diamondbacks, Drew hit for the cycle. That very same day, Adrian Beltre matched the feat, marking only the second time in major league history that two players hit for the cycle on the same date. It was such an unlikely occurrence that Drew saved the game ball and had Beltre sign it the next time the two players faced each other. Not that a cycle needs any extra help being unique.

Over the past century, starting with the 1917 season and going all the way through 2016, there were a total of 249 cycles, according to Baseball Reference. That averages to about two and a half per year. For comparison's sake, that's about as uncommon as a no-hitter (over the same period, there were 213 no-no's) and roughly twice as rare as a three-homer game (556 of those). No wonder the record for most cycles in a career is ... wait for it ...

Three.

(Raise your hand if you thought it was more.)

Although three of the four guys who are tied for the record have long since hung up their cycling shoes (John Reilly, Bob Meusel, Babe Herman), the other one is still playing: Beltre. If Beltre, the 38-year-old Rangers star and a likely Hall of Famer, can manage to do it again, he'll have the top spot all to himself. If he can't, there's a certain young shortstop for the Nationals who stands as good a chance as anybody at someday breaking the record. Not just because he hits triples and homers, but because he hits.

By definition, a cycle cannot happen without going at least 4-for-something. That's easier said than done, especially in an era where bullpen specialization and flame-throwing relievers are making late-game at-bats as challenging as they've ever been. Said Speier: "Just to get four hits in a game is hard enough." How hard? Last year, Turner's teammate Daniel Murphy, who finished second in the NL batting race, recorded four hits only twice. Colorado's DJ LeMahieu, who won the batting title, did it three times. As for Turner, despite playing in exactly half as many games as LeMahieu, he somehow managed to do it three times, too, en route to finishing with a .342 average. In other words, Turner's pretty good at the whole putting-the-bat-on-the-ball thing. It doesn't hurt that he gets plenty of opportunities to do so.

"Being at the top of the order helps you get that extra at-bat," said Drew, who has moved all around the lineup during his career, but who was hitting leadoff on the day of his cycle. It's the same spot where Turner spent most of last season and, now that teammate Adam Eaton is out for the year because of an ACL injury, where he'll spend the rest of this season. For the record, Turner's cycle came out of the 2-hole, where there are still ABs aplenty. Not that cycles can't come from further down in the order. In fact, over the past century, nearly a quarter of all cycles have come from the 3-hole (59 of 249 entering this season), more than any other position in the lineup. But perhaps more important than where a player hits is where a player plays.

It's no coincidence that Turner's cycle came at Coors Field. Now in its 23rd season, Colorado's park has played host to a whopping 16 cycles. That's second only to Fenway Park, which has witnessed 17 cycles -- in 105 years. But the reason that Coors, known for its thin air and fat home run totals, is so cycle-friendly might have less to do with how the ball carries and more to do with how it rolls.

"It helps to have big gaps," says Drew, whose cycle came at Chase Field, a spacious park that features the third-most expansive outfield in the National League, according to Fangraphs. The largest outfield in the NL? That'd be Coors Field. In related news, over the past 10 years, the two stadiums that rank 1-2 in number of triples hit are ... Coors and Chase. On the flip side, Nats Park, which features the third-smallest outfield in the National League, has seen fewer than half as many triples as Coors Field. Not that the dimensions in D.C. will necessarily crimp Turner's future cycling habits. After all, the normal laws of physics don't necessarily apply to him.

As a rookie last season, Turner hit more than half his triples at home (five of eight). Among them was a three-bagger against the Dodgers that came on a line drive into the left-field corner, as in the part of the outfield that's closest to third base and therefore makes it exceedingly easy for defenders to throw out idiotic hitters who dare attempt to stretch a double into a triple. With wheels like Turner's, anything's possible. Including becoming the all-time cycle king.

"If I had to put my money on anybody," Drew said, "it'd be Trea."