Joshua Báez After Historic Day with 3 HRs in First 3 ABs: 'It's Just a Dream Come True'

At long last, the late, great Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg and the infamous “Sandberg Game” was pushed aside and eclipsed by Cardinals’ history-making rookie Joshua Báez on Saturday at Wrigley Field.

Make room for “The Joshua Báez Game.”

Báez, 23, made Major League history by homering in the first three at bats of his big-league career in the Cardinals’ 8-4 defeat of the rival Cubs at Wrigley Field on Saturday.

No player in the 123-year history of MLB had ever started their career the way that the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Báez did in his first three at bats in his first big-league game. Two innings after becoming just the third player in MLB history to homer in his first two at bats, Báez hit a slider on the outside corner over the wall in right field to set some big-league history.

“It’s unreal and like I really can’t put it into words,” Báez said to Cardinals TV after making MLB history on Saturday with approximately 30 friends and family in the stands at Wrigley Field. “Honestly, it’s just a dream come true."

Báez, who was officially promoted on Saturday morning after mashing 34 homers in the Minor Leagues, set the stage for the historic performance by homering on the first pitch he ever saw at the Triple-A level. He drilled Matthew Boyd’s fastball 449 feet – a smash that easily cleared the Wrigley Field bleachers and nearly left the ballpark entirely.

“To be honest, I was just trying to stay calm and embrace it,” said Báez, who drove in five runs and played flawlessly in left field. "The only thing was to just have fun.”

For decades, Cardinals’ fans have had to relive “The Sandberg Game,” a 12-11 win by the rival Cubs on June 23, 1984, at Wrigley Field. Cards’ Hall of Famer Willie McGee hit for the cycle that day, drove in six runs and scored three times, but he was eclipsed by Sandberg, who hit homers off Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter in the ninth and 10th innings and went 5 for 6 with seven RBI that afternoon.

On this Saturday, Báez did something even more jaw-dropping in setting some MLB history.

One of the novelties of the record-setting feat by Báez was that his three home runs were of three different varieties. In the first inning, he was on time for the first fastball he saw and drilled it almost out of the stadium. He led off the fourth inning and had to battle back from a 0-2 count and forced the count full. He then blistered a Boyd changeup 382 feet on a line drive into the left field seats. In the sixth inning, he went with a slider on the outside corner, driving it the other way and into the right field seats for the record-setting homer.

“Gosh, that was incredible to watch, and this kid really brings something really cool to this clubhouse,” Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol marveled. “For him to come into his first game and show out the way that he did, that was fun. There was a lot of smiling (in the dugout) and that was really, really cool to watch.”

Báez, a second-round pick by the Cardinals in the 2021 MLB Draft, grew up in Boston, lived for a time in the Dominican Republic before returning to the Boston area where he graduated high school. He struggled through his first four seasons in pro ball before authoring a breakout season in 2025 while at High-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield.

This season, Báez – the No. 3-ranked prospect in the Cardinals system – began the season at Triple-A. He hit six homers in April and 10 in May and June each. A Cardinals franchise committed to rebuilding around a core of promising young players resisted the notion of bringing Báez up too early and waited until he recently started showing progress at the plate before his promotion. Over his final 15 games in Triple-A, Báez slashed .345/.415/707/1.122 while also dramatically lowering his strikeout rate (from 33 percent to 34.6 percent) and improving his walk rate (from 9 percent to 11 percent).

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“(President of baseball operations) Chaim (Bloom) and his group have been really smart about when they (promote players), in making sure guys have gone through it and they have been tested a little bit down there (in Triple-A),” Marmol said. “But the timing was right, I like what it brings to our clubhouse and I like where he’s at mentally and physically. What he saw today was special.”

Through four at bats at the MLB level, Báez has yet to swing and miss. His home run magic ended with that fourth at bat of the game in the eighth inning when he lined out to left field, but he was still given a standing ovation from the crowd at Wrigley Field.

Marmol liked the aggressiveness that he saw from the slugger who wasn’t content after any of his three homers and kept pushing for more each time he stepped into the batter’s box.

“Today showed a decent amount of his skill set by going first pitch (on the first homer), then pulls one by coming back from an 0-2 count and getting it to 3-2 and then going backside because he’s got tremendous power,” said Marmol, whose club also got homers from Alec Burleson and Blaze Jordan and six strong innings from starting pitcher Michael McGreevy (5-9).

“Here’s the reality … I’ll try to keep it simple, but he brings this edge to his game, and we have a lot of that in this clubhouse. Now, you add another guy with that type of mentality, and this is going to be fun to watch.”