Joshua Báez made sure his major league debut somehow exceeded the wild expectations that preceded it.

Báez’s emotional journey to the St. Louis Cardinals‘ lineup culminated Saturday, Aug. 15 when he made major league history by homering three times in his first three major league at-bats, including a towering two-run home run on the first pitch he saw from Chicago Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd at Wrigley Field.

It’s the first time any player has homered three times in his MLB debut.

That first homer, a 449-foot blast to dead center field, sent the visiting dugout into padding-pounding pandemonium and the more than two dozen family members on hand from around the USA and Dominican Republic into unabashed glee. Yet it was only the beginning of a power show that drove the Cardinals to an 8-4 victory over the Cubs.

In his second at-bat, Báez led off the fourth inning by clubbing a full-count Boyd changeup 382 feet into the third row of Wrigley’s left field bleachers. He battled back from an 0-2 count and didn’t see a single fastball from Boyd, who’d hoped to mix up the lefty with a mix of off-speed pitches.

Until he hung one.

Báez, 21, came into the game the Cardinals’ No. 3 prospect, yet that designation might have to be updated after his debut.

That’s because on his third trip to the plate – with Boyd, amazingly, still on the hill, increasingly becoming a more significant footnote to history – Báez found his third set of bleachers.

This time, it was to right field, off a Boyd slider, a two-run shot that gave the Cardinals a 6-3 lead. At this point, the giddiness gave way to utter disbelief. Cardinals DH Ivan Herrera simply clutched the sides of his head with his two hands, a reaction echoing Thomas Hill’s tearful gratitude when Duke’s Christian Laettner hit that shot back in 1992.

Báez was a third-round pick of the Cardinals in 2021, out of Dexter School in Brookline, Mass. He was midway through his second full pro season, at Class A Palm Beach, when his father, Jose Manuel, who’d had a profound impact on his baseball development, passed away.

Báez continued climbing the Cardinals’ system and the prospect charts, rising to No. 56 in Baseball America’s top 100 ratings this summer. And then came June 16, and the third anniversary of his father’s death.

The Cardinals outfield prospect marked the occasion by hitting four home runs for Class AAA Memphis, pointing to the sky after each of them.

“I was just trying to push through, and it’s just insane I was able to hit four home runs in one night,” he said then.

It was a significant step in doubling down on his 2025 power breakout, when he hit 20 homers and got on the Cardinals’ big league radar. This year, he’s crushed 34 home runs and driven in 90 runs for Memphis, all but daring the Cardinals to ignore him.

That’s proven impossible with every level Báez climbs. And now, he’s reached the highest in historic fashion.