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’ 6-4 win over 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.
“Like a breath of fresh air,” said Salas with a smile. “I’m happy to get the first out of the way.”
Lee has proven himself capable of taming the difficult angles of right field in San Francisco, but Salas had third base on his mind the whole time.
“As soon as I hit it, I was just like, ‘get over his head, get over his head,’ every step, in my mind,” Salas said. “And then as soon as I saw it go down, I just put my head down.”
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 for the White Sox on July 25, 1980 (19 years, 330 days old).
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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 Aug. 9, 2012.
Machado said he’d been giving Salas an earful in the dugout about copying him for his first Major League hit -- but he was unaware of the youthful connection between the two.
“Really? Oh, I didn’t even know that,” said Machado, his eyes widening. “I thought I was just talking [crap], but I wasn’t, I guess. It’s hard to get to the big leagues when you’re 20, and it’s hard to get a triple. I don’t have many triples.” (Machado has 18 in 15 seasons.)
Salas became 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 cameras caught Machado collecting the baseball from the dugout, and the rookie said he’d probably give the prized baseball to his parents.
“It's really cool because the baseball we're playing matters,” emphasized Salas. “It’s always fun to play important baseball at this time of year, and it's the best time of year to be here.”
It had been a tough go for the 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.”
Postgame, Stammen smiled regarding the clubhouse celebration that Salas’ teammates put together for the rookie.
“I think we've all been saying our prayers and trying to will that first hit,” Stammen said. “We just want the kid to have success and to feel like he belongs. One thing we kept telling him that he earned this promotion. It wasn't like we just gave it to him because he's the top prospect and all that, he earned it. He played his way to have this opportunity to play in the big leagues, and you know it was a good feeling for everybody when that ball fell in.”
Machado interrupted a question about seeing Salas get his first hit with the word, "finally."
“To finally see him get it, he can breathe now,” Machado added. “He can relax and play his game. I think he's a big part of this organization, and he's been playing some really good baseball for us every time he goes out there and catches and having good at-bats as well. So I think he's going to be a big, big part of us.”