masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgI’m pretty sure that Manny Machado must have hit two homers in one game in his career before last night, but he never did it in 219 Orioles minor league games at places like Delmarva, Aberdeen, Frederick and Bowie.

In fact, as best my research can tell, Machado had just one four-RBI game in the O’s minors, and that was this year on June 21 for Double-A Bowie against Erie.

This season for the Baysox, Machado hit just two homers in the season’s first two months. That covers 52 games and 184…I’m pretty sure that Manny Machado must have hit two homers in one game in his career before last night, but he never did it in 219 Orioles minor league games at places like Delmarva, Aberdeen, Frederick and Bowie.

In fact, as best my research can tell, Machado had just one four-RBI game in the O’s minors, and that was this year on June 21 for Double-A Bowie against Erie.

This season for the Baysox, Machado hit just two homers in the season’s first two months. That covers 52 games and 184 at-bats. Now he has two in two games and eight at-bats with Baltimore. Manny did hit nine homers at Bowie over his last 57 games before his promotion.

So far he is 4-for-8 with a slugging percentage of 1.500 and OPS of 2.000.

By the way, here are two notes on Manny’s night from Elias:

* At 20 years, 35 days old, Machado is the youngest player in major league history to have a multiple-home-run game in either his first or second career game. The previous youngest player was Manny Ramirez on September 3, 1993. Ramirez (21 years, 96 days old) hit two homers in his second career game, played at Yankee Stadium on September 3, 1993, a 7-3 Indians win. He homered off Melido Perez and Paul Gibson.

* In his first two career games, Machado has hit two homers and a triple. He’s the first player in modern major league history (since 1900) with two homers and a triple through his first two career games in the majors.

Watching Machado do this at such a young age reminds me of a conversation I had with him several weeks ago at Bowie. I said to him that seeing Bryce Harper do great things at just 19 in the major leagues probably puts unfair expectations on top young prospects such as himself to do the same.

That day, Machado said it was not unfair to be compared to Harper. He was ready then and is now for the expectations of him and his play to be very high. Maybe crazy high after last night.

Machado never hit a lot of homers in the minors, but as he matures and gets stronger and continues to develop, scouts have always thought he’d show some real pop in his bat. Maybe not league leading type homer power but enough to do some real damage as he did last night.

Meanwhile, Miguel Gonzalez had another good outing and the Orioles are now 5-2 in his seven starts. He has allowed just one run in 15 innings his past two starts.

The Orioles have gotten some good pitching lately as they have allowed two runs or less in six of their last eight games.

But as for Machado, he batted in the eighth inning and flied out missing his chance to become the first Oriole with a three-homer game since Nick Markakis hit a trio on August 22, 2006 at Camden Yards against Minnesota.

So Manny never hit two in one game in the minors but now he’s got two in one game in the majors. He can cross that one off the bucket list.

Going down memory lane: Pretty amazing to think that it was only just over 13 months ago that I was interviewing Machado in Salisbury at the South Atlantic League All-Star game. That night, he and Bryce Harper hit back-to-back in the order.