Daniel Norris crushes homer in first career at-bat, leaves later with injury
Detroit Tigers rookie pitcher Daniel Norris didn’t just come to Wrigley Field to beat the Cubs or damage video boards in batting practice, he came to Wrigley Field to make a little history.
He did just that in Detroit’s 15-8 victory against the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night. Though with the good also came some bad, as Norris was forced to leave the game with a right oblique strain.
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Focusing on the positive first, in his first plate appearance at any level of professional baseball — he never logged a plate appearance in four minor league seasons — Norris crushed a long two-run homer against Chicago’s veteran left-hander Jon Lester.
We do mean crushed, too. Norris hit it a long way to straight-away center field. In doing so, he actually accomplished several amazing things at once. Not the least of which, he homered as a left-handed batter against one of the game’s very best left-handed pitchers in Lester. That’s something only Lucas Duda, Bryce Harper and Carlos Gonzalez has been able to do this season.
Beyond that though, Norris did make history, becoming the first American League pitcher to ever homer at Wrigley Field.
That includes regular season and postseason.
With interleague play only coming along in 1997 and the Cubs only hosting AL teams for a handful of games each season, the opportunities for AL pitchers to homer at Wrigley have been limited. In fact, AL teams have only played 160 games at Wrigley Field. Still, it’s pretty amazing to think that a ballpark with that much history had yet to surrender a home run to an AL pitcher.
Cross it off the bucket list. It’s a done deal now.
The fact that Norris, who had never batted in a professional game before Wednesday, is the one to do it definitely adds another layer to the story. Then add in his batting practice session on Tuesday, which prompted repairs to the brand new video board in right field, and we have the making of a legend. That is book material right there, and Norris himself is definitely enough of a character to make it work.
Here’s another interesting tidbit on his big fly.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t end on the highest possible note for Norris. In the fifth inning, he felt a tweak in his oblique and was forced to leave the game. It’s already announced he’ll be placed on the 15-day disabled list.
Naturally, there’s already speculation that Norris’ exploits swinging the bat the past two days had an impact. It’s possible, and if true would certainly add to the debate about pitchers hitting at all in MLB. For now, though, the concern for Detroit is just having Norris healthy so he can get comfortable in the big leagues.
Detroit, by the way, had five home runs and 21 hits overall in Wednesday’s win. Nick Castellanos led the way with four hits, including two homers and two doubles. Detroit swept the brief two-game series, outscoring Chicago 25-16. We’ll set the Bears-Lions over/unders right there.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
