Jesus Montero has been impossible to avoid the last two years. The nature of baseball in the early 21st century is that when a Yankee prospect begins destroying the ball at the age of 19 in Double-A, it’s impossible to not know about the guy. So Montero entered the collective consciousness of baseball fans after the 2009 season, in which he hit a combined .332/.389/.562 as a teenager across Advanced-A and Double-A. Since then he’s been in Triple-A, still killing the ball even if he’s not quite meeting the torrid pace he set in the low minors. In 2010 and 2011, Montero’s hit .289/.351/.493, still excellent for a player his age at Triple-A. Yankee fans have raved about him in a fashion befitting his name, non-Yankee fans have rolled their eyes and wondered just how good the kid could be.
Then on Monday, in just his fourth game in pinstripes, Montero homered twice to help the Yankees to an 11-10 win over the Orioles and the whole world gave a collective, “Ohhhhh, that’s why he’s so highly-touted” in response. Completely divorced from context, having a multi-homer game so early in a career is pretty rare, but it’s also one of those things that’s flukey enough that it doesn’t really mean anything. Danny Espinosa hit two homers in his fifth career game last year, while JP Arrencibia did it in his big league debut last August. Shelley Duncan is the last Yankee to do it, in 2007, and as Hardball Talk pointed out, Manny Ramirez is the last guy to do it at such a young age.
This is not a situation that’s entirely divorced from context, though, and that’s why Montero’s performance over the next month is very important to the Yankees. In 2011, the two offensive positions that the Yanks have gotten the least offense from are catcher (Russell Martin is hitting .237/.325/.414) and DH (Jorge Posada is hitting .238/.316/.397). Montero could potentially help upgrade either spot in the lineup, especially as a right-handed hitter with Posada struggling against lefties this year.
Of course, we are talking about a 21-year old with just four games of big league experience and it’s hard to project how he’ll do just in the season’s last three weeks, let alone how he might fare against sorts of pitching staffs and specialized matchups he’d see in the playoffs. But when you’re a highly touted Yankee prospect who homers twice in the fourth game of your career, expectations are going to be awfully high.
Also yesterday: With a 4-2 win over the Indians, the Tigers stretched their AL Central lead to 7 1/2 games. The White Sox managed to gain a half-game in the race with a double-header sweep over the Twins that included Zach Stewart’s sparking one-hitter (he retired the first 21 hitters), but they’re still eight games back. James Shields recorded his 11th complete game of the season, which is pretty much unheard of these days. The Brewers beat the Cardinals, which extends their NL Central lead to 10 1/2 games and the Braves’ wild card lead to 8 1/2. The Angels managed to make up a game on the Rangers and are now just 2 1/2 back.
Tonight’s games: In the only two games that matter in terms of a playoff race, CJ Wilson starts for the Rangers in Tampa against Jeff Niemann and Ervin Santana starts for the Angels at home against King Felix. Those are two good starts, which is nice for baseball because it’s not exactly optimal to have two important games and 13 glorified exhibitions with most teams still having about 20 games left on the schedule. Tonight’s full slate is here.
