montanez's moment!

When left-fielder Lou Montanez (called up from Double-A) made his major league debut in the third inning last night, the O's were down by five runs. Ervin Santana pitched a fastball over the plate and Montanez shot it over the fence in left center-field, becoming only the second Oriole in history to hit a home run in his first majors at-bat. Watch for yourself:

Montanez was leading the Double-A Eastern League in all three Triple Crown Categories, including 26 home runs for Bowie. The left fielder had this to say about his major at-bat: "You never expect that, but you do envision this when you were a kid for your first at-bat," he said. "You want to go deep, and it actually came true, so it's real special."

Like I said before, the only other Oriole to ever get a home-run in his first majors at-bat was pitcher (that's right a pitcher) Les "Buster" Narum on May 3, 1963 in the top of the fourth in Detroit. But the O's ended up winning that game 8-5.

Montanez was very flattered to be in Narum's company: "That means a lot, It means my name's going to be in the record books for as long as baseball exists, so it's real neat."

His confidence was obviously boosted by that first home run because, in his next at-bat, he singled and scored. The hits should probably come as no surprise because of Montanez's numbers in the minor leagues. In one incredibly impressive week (July 27-August 2), he was 17-32, batting .530 with 12 runs and 17 RBI's. Not too shabby.

As Dave Trembley says, "When you're hot, it doesn't matter who's pitching or where you're playing. I told him that it's the same game, maybe a little bit faster. Do the same things that you were doing in Bowie."

And apparently, Lou listened.