Friday, September 15, baseball history was made. Joshua Báez, the Cardinals' rookie outfielder, stepped into the box at Wrigley Field for his first career at-bat and hit the first pitch he saw 449 feet. Then he did it again in his second at-bat. Then he did it a third time. Three at-bats, three home runs, one afternoon that no player in the history of the game had ever produced. He finished 3-for-4 with 5 RBIs in an 8-4 Cardinals win over the Cubs.
That's why we love this game. After more than 150 years and over 20,000 players, something brand new can still happen on a random Saturday afternoon in August.
So today, in Báez's honor, we're counting down the ten greatest first-game performances by hitters, and the ten greatest by pitchers, in Major League history.
Top 10 First-Game Performances: Hitters
1. Joshua Báez, Cardinals — August 15, 2026 Three home runs. Three at-bats. Nobody in baseball history had ever done it before Báez did it against the Cubs, homering off three different pitches from Matthew Boyd — center, left, then right field. He nearly had a fourth in the eighth inning before lining out. Called up from Triple-A the day before, with 30 family members in the stands, it's as good a debut as the sport has ever produced.
2. Bob Nieman, St. Louis Browns — September 14, 1951 A 24-year-old Kent State journalism major stepped in against Red Sox lefty Mickey McDermott and hit a home run in his first career at-bat. He came up again the next inning and did it again. Nieman remains the only player in MLB history to homer in his first two at-bats of the same game — a record that's stood for over 70 years.
3. Willie McCovey, San Francisco Giants — July 30, 1959 The Giants didn't call McCovey up until their 101st game of the season, but he made the wait worth it: four hits in four at-bats, including two triples, against the Phillies. He'd go on to hit .354 the rest of the way and win the Rookie of the Year award unanimously — the first chapter of a Hall of Fame career.
4. Bert Campaneris, Kansas City Athletics — July 23, 1964 Campaneris turned on the first major-league pitch he ever saw — from future Hall of Famer Jim Kaat — and sent it out of the park. He added a second homer off Kaat later in the game, finishing 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs, a walk, and a stolen base. At the time, only one other player in history had ever hit two home runs in his debut.
5. Starlin Castro, Chicago Cubs — May 7, 2010 Called up from Double-A that same morning, Castro drilled a three-run homer off Homer Bailey in his first at-bat. He came back later and tripled home three more runs. Six RBIs in a debut — nobody else has ever matched it.
6. Daniel Nava, Boston Red Sox — June 12, 2010 With the bases loaded in his first major-league at-bat, Nava swung at the very first pitch he ever saw as a big leaguer and sent it over the Green Monster for a grand slam. He's just the fourth player in history to homer in his first at-bat with the bases loaded.
7. Trevor Story, Colorado Rockies — April 4, 2016 Story picked Opening Day for his major-league debut and hit two home runs off Zack Greinke — the first player ever to go deep twice on Opening Day in his first game. He wasn't done: he hit at least one home run in each of his next three games too, becoming the first player ever to homer in each of his first four career games.
8. Aaron Judge & Tyler Austin, New York Yankees — August 13, 2016 Two rookies, one inning, back-to-back home runs. Judge and Austin went deep in succession in the second inning against Tampa Bay, becoming the first pair of teammates ever to homer in their major-league debuts in the same game. One of them turned into one of the greatest sluggers baseball has ever seen.
9. J.P. Arencibia, Toronto Blue Jays — August 7, 2010 Nearly buried in a wild, 28-run offensive game, the catcher hit two home runs in his first major-league start, called up to fill in for the injured John Buck.
10. Mark Quinn, Kansas City Royals — September 14, 1999 Quinn doubled in his first big-league at-bat, then homered off two different Angels pitchers later in the game — a pair of two-run shots that turned an 11th-round draft pick into an instant story.
Top 10 First-Game Performances: Pitchers
1. Bumpus Jones, Cincinnati Reds — October 15, 1892 The only pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball to throw a no-hitter in his major-league debut. Jones walked four batters and allowed an unearned run, but not a single hit, beating the Pirates. It remains one of the rarest feats in the sport — and it's never happened since.
2. Billy Rohr, Boston Red Sox — April 14, 1967 On a cold day at Yankee Stadium, the 21-year-old lefty carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning of his very first major-league start. With two outs, Elston Howard singled to right, ending the bid — Rohr settled for a one-hitter, one out away from the most improbable no-hitter imaginable.
3. Karl Spooner, Brooklyn Dodgers — September 22, 1954 Facing the rival Giants — and striking out Willie Mays twice — Spooner threw a complete-game, three-hit shutout and struck out 15 batters, setting a debut strikeout record that still stands nearly 70 years later.
4. J.R. Richard, Houston Astros — September 6, 1971 The only pitcher ever to match Spooner's 15-strikeout debut record, Richard struck out Hall of Famer Willie Mays three times in the same game. He wouldn't become a full-time starter for several more years, but the arm strength was obvious from pitch one.
5. Juan Marichal, San Francisco Giants — July 19, 1960 Four outs from a no-hitter in his very first major-league start, Marichal settled for a one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts and just one walk against the Phillies. It was the first of 457 career starts for the future Hall of Famer.
6. Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals — June 8, 2010 In front of 40,000 fans and the most hype any pitching debut has ever carried, Strasburg struck out 14 Pirates over seven innings without issuing a single walk — the third-most strikeouts in a debut in MLB history.
7. Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati Reds — April 3, 2008 Cueto retired the first 15 batters he faced and finished with 10 strikeouts and zero walks — the first pitcher since at least 1900 to strike out 10 batters without a walk in his major-league debut.
8. Danny Cox, St. Louis Cardinals — August 6, 1983 Cox threw 10 scoreless innings in his debut, outdueling Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, who himself went nine scoreless. No other pitcher in MLB history has thrown 10 shutout innings in a first career start — though Cox took a no-decision when the Cardinals' bullpen let the game slip away in extras.
9. Bobo Holloman, St. Louis Browns — May 6, 1953
A small asterisk on this one: Holloman had already pitched in relief a few weeks earlier, so this was his first career start, not his first game. But what a start — a no-hitter against the Athletics, making him the only pitcher since 1900 besides Bumpus Jones to throw one in a first big-league start.
10. Steve Woodard, Milwaukee Brewers — August 6, 1997 Woodard threw eight innings of one-hit, 12-strikeout shutout ball in his debut — and did it while outdueling that year's American League Cy Young winner, Roger Clemens, who struck out 10 in the same game. A 1-0 final score for one of the more overlooked debuts in the book.
Somewhere, a kid in his first big-league start or his first big-league at-bat is about to write himself onto this list. That's the beauty of baseball — the record book is never actually finished.