Cubano baseball experienced an unprecedented night in Major League Baseball this Tuesday: Lázaro Montes and Yohandy Morales both hit home runs in their respective MLB debuts on the same day, a feat that has no previous record in baseball history for two players of Cuban origin.
Montes, 21 years old, starred in a dream debut with the Seattle Mariners against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. In the fifth inning, the player from Havana hit a 407-foot missile to center field that left the MLB announcer speechless: "High ball hit to center field. It's gone. Home run. Light tower power inside Fenway Park. Lázaro Montes with an absolute missile. Welcome to the show."
He finished the night with a line of 2-4, two RBIs, and two runs scored, while Seattle won 9-6.
At 21 years and 314 days old, Montes became the sixth player in Mariners history to hit a home run in his MLB debut—and the youngest on that exclusive list, which includes Jamie Nelson (1983), Alvin Davis (1984), Greg Dobbs (2004), Kenji Johjima (2006), and Kyle Lewis (2019). Additionally, he became the seventh Cuban to achieve this milestone in Major League Baseball, a group led by Bert Campaneris, who hit two home runs in his debut in 1964, and also includes Jorge Soler (2014) and Yordan Álvarez (2019).
The Habanero player reached MLB after a dominant season between Double-A Arkansas and Triple-A Tacoma, where he accumulated 38 home runs and 96 runs batted in over 123 games. In August, he had tied the historical record for home runs by a Cuban in the minor leagues since 1959, with 37, before surpassing it.
Montes signed with Seattle in January 2022 as an international free agent for $2.5 million.
In parallel, and hundreds of miles away, Yohandy Morales was writing his own page in history with the Washington Nationals against the Atlanta Braves.
The 24-year-old from Miami, son of former Cuban player Andy Morales, made his first productive at-bat in Major League Baseball with a home run: a 407-foot blast with an exit velocity of 100.8 miles per hour to left field against pitcher AJ Smith-Shawver, in just his second at-bat as a Major League player. The MLB camera captured his family's reaction in the stands, an image that instantly went viral.
Morales finished his debut with a line of 3-5, a home run, a double, two runs scored, and one run batted in, serving as the fifth designated hitter. He was just a triple shy of completing the cycle.
Washington won 9-5, and the Cuban-American became the eleventh player for the Nationals to hit a home run in his MLB debut; the last to achieve this was Joey Meneses on August 2, 2022.
Selected in the second round of the 2023 Amateur Draft with a bonus of $2.6 million, Morales arrived in September after accumulating 25 home runs and 76 RBIs in Triple-A Rochester.
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