Coco Crisp's "almost" achievement

The AP story on yesterday's A's/Indians game indicates that Coco Crisp of the A's was a "triple shy of a cycle" last night.

This has got to be one of the most overused phrases in baseball.

Hello! Triples are hard to hit! If you are a "triple shy of a cycle", you are not really close and it is probably not worth talking about other than you had a good offensive game.

It is kind of like saying you are a "lottery ticket shy of being a millionaire".

That ain't close.