Joshua Báez saw one big league pitch in his life and hit it 449 feet, a two-run shot to dead center off Cubs starter Matthew Boyd on the first pitch of his career, 108.6 mph off the bat. He came back up in the fourth and hit a second one, 386 feet to left. He came back after that and hit a third, 382 feet to right. By the time he flew out in the seventh, Báez had become the first player in MLB history to homer in his first three career at-bats, a feat nobody had managed in 150-plus years of professional baseball.
Say that out loud. Baseball’s been played professionally since the 1870s. Only two guys had ever even homered in their first two at-bats: Bob Nieman in 1951 and Keith McDonald in 2000. Both of them stopped there. Báez didn’t stop there.
He kept going.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol had said the day before the call-up that Báez was “on his way” and would be in the lineup. That phrase undersold it by a wide margin. This was a guy who’d spent the year raking at Triple-A Memphis: a .256/.328/.573 line, a Triple-A-leading 34 homers, 90 RBIs, 21 steals, a .901 OPS through 103 games. And the Cardinals still had him ranked as their No. 3 prospect instead of, you know, a guy who should’ve been up in June.
I’ll admit I assumed Báez’s first day would look like every other call-up’s first day: overmatched, nervous, a strikeout or two to remind everyone the majors are hard. Instead Joshua Báez’s Cardinals debut turned into the loudest afternoon Wrigley’s hosted all season, courtesy of a 23-year-old nobody outside Cardinals Twitter had strong opinions about a week ago.
There’s a heavier story sitting under the highlight, too. Báez has talked about losing his father, José Manuel, three years ago, and about the one promise he made him: that he’d reach the majors. Earlier this season, on the third anniversary of his dad’s death, he hit four home runs in a single Triple-A game. Read into that whatever you want.
The complicating part: it was one game, against one team, on one Saturday, and the Cardinals are 61-61, three and a half games out of the final NL Wild Card spot. A three-homer debut doesn’t fix a bullpen or buy a wild card berth by itself, any more than another rookie forcing his way onto a rebuilding roster fixes a farm system overnight.
But my god, what a way to introduce yourself.
Cardinals fans have spent all July looking for a reason to care about the second half. Báez gave them one before the Cubs finished warming up their bullpen.
Boyd, the pitcher who served up pitch number one, gets to spend the rest of his career as a trivia answer next to a kid from Dorchester by way of Santo Domingo who nobody circled on the calendar Saturday morning. It’s not going to help the Cubs’ pitching problems that their own division rival just used them as a highlight reel.
Watch the first one leave the yard:
https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/2088717426217115982
Three swings, three homers, zero people who saw any of it coming. Wrigley’s seen a lot of history walk through those gates. It’s never seen this particular guy do this particular thing on a random Saturday in August.
