Sometimes I’m a bit behind on the stuff that happens on the field. Many nights, I don’t get a chance to look at box scores before going to bed, and realize the next day that somebody somewhere did something impressive.
Yesterday, I saw that 20-year-old shortstop Starlin Castro had been called up by the Cubs and made a mental note to do a Now Batting For post for him sooner rather than later. Stuff came up, as it always does, and “sooner” turned into this morning.
After making breakfast for the wife and kid, I sat down to knock some work out before heading out to my nephew’s birthday party. I opened up a couple tabs on Castro, then remembered that his debut was last night and headed over to Baseball-Reference to check it out.
1 G…5 AB…2 H…1 3B…1 HR…6 RBI…that can’t be right…can it?
Mentally composing an email to Sean Forman, asking if something went haywire during the update, I moved over to Yahoo to see the box score. Holy guacamole, it was for real.
Starlin Castro got awakened by his first call to the majors on Friday and arrived in historic style, hitting a three-run homer in his first at-bat and driving in a record six runs during the Chicago Cubs’ 14-7 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
“The kid—what a debut!” manager Lou Piniella said. “He’s got to be ecstatic. He should be.”
The 20-year-old became the youngest shortstop in Cubs history when he stepped onto the field for the first time. Then, he became a sensation.
His homer off Homer Bailey (0-2) made him the sixth player in Cubs history to connect in his first at-bat. He added a bases-loaded triple, sliding headfirst into the record books with six RBIs, the most ever in a modern day debut—one more than the previous mark shared by four players.
That’s how you make an entrance.
And it looks like the kid is here to stay for the time being. His arrival was preceded not by injury, but by Chad Tracy’s demotion to Triple-A Iowa, and Ryan Theriot has been moved from shortstop to second base. In other words, the Cubs brought Castro to the big leagues because they wanted him to play, not because they wanted to give him a taste while someone did time on the DL.
Photo: MiLB.com
