Padres top prospect Salas triples for 1st big league knock

SAN FRANCISCO -- It took longer than he probably expected, but Ethan Salas has his first Major League hit.

In the fourth inning of the Padres’ game against the Giants on Sunday evening at Oracle Park, Salas -- the Padres’ top prospect per MLB Pipeline -- cracked a triple off the wall in right field, just below Levi’s Landing.

Jung Hoo Lee ranged back to the warning track and made a valiant play to try and reel it in, though the ball eluded his clutches and careened toward right-center, at which point Salas lost his helmet rounding second on his way to third base.

At 20 years, 104 days old, Salas is the youngest player in Padres history with a triple and the youngest MLB player with a triple as a catcher since Ricky Seilheimer on July 25, 1980 (19 years, 330 days old).

He’s also the youngest player to triple for his first career hit since his current teammate Manny Machado did it at 20 years and 34 days on Sept. 8, 2012.

Salas is the first catcher to triple for his first Major League hit since Adley Rutschman in 2022, and just the seventh catcher since 1998 whose first hit was a triple.

NBC broadcast cameras caught Machado collecting the baseball from the dugout, ensuring the rookie will end up with that prized baseball.

It had been a tough go for the 20-year-old catching phenom since he was called up from Triple-A El Paso on Sept. 1, as Salas entered his second at-bat on Sunday 0-for-15. But the Padres felt a hit was coming, with manager Craig Stammen noting that Salas came close in some of his previous at-bats:

“He's going to get a hit,” said Stammen. “It's going to happen. It's hard to get hits in the Major Leagues. I think that's evident, and this is another example of that. But as long as he sticks with it, he'll be just fine.”