Seattle Mariners Prospect Matches Two Grand Hall Of Famers

At age 18 and after only 14 minor-league games, Tai Peete is a long way from the majors.

Yet the Seattle Mariners prospect put himself into some major company with two swings of the bat on Sunday. He hit consecutive grand slam home runs for the Modesto Nuts of the Class A California League to help his team overcome an eight-run deficit and defeat host San Jose, 13-12 in 10 innings.

“Nothing really compares to what just happened,” Peete told Ben Weinrib, a contributor for MiLB.com.

The feat is so rare that it has only been accomplished by 13 men in MLB history, including Baseball Hall of Famers Tony Lazzeri and Frank Robinson.

Peete went on to tell Weinrib: “The first one, I saw (right-hander Luis Moreno) shook off, so I’m usually expecting something here. I got a good barrel to it. After I got that one, my second at-bat afterwards (vs. lefty Tommy Kane), I was just thinking, ‘base hit.’ I don’t want to do too much. But in the back of my mind, I’m just thinking, ‘Swing out your shoes. Might as well. The time is now to do it. Might as well swing out your shoes.’ That’s what I did, and my team had my back on it. It’s a moment I’ll probably never forget.”

Peete’s first slam came in the seventh inning and he did it again in the eighth for his first two homers since being drafted 30th overall last month. He never had a multi-homer game despite batting .403 with 22 homers and 57 stolen bases in four years in high school.

Scouts raved about the left-hand hitter’s speed before the draft. A couple of clubs reportedly had him listed as a pitching prospect. Scott Hunter, the Mariners’ director of amateur scouting called the 6-foot-2, 193-pound shortstop a “potential five-tool player with a rare combination of speed and power” on draft day.

Seattle paid him a $2,500,000 signing bonus.

Peete first gained attention by playing for Peachtree, Ga., at the 2018 Little League World Series, where he was following in the footsteps of his mother, Yuki. She played in the 1993 and 1994 Little League European Region Championships, representing Austria.

After going 13-for 37 (.351) in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League, Peete was promoted to Modesto. In four games at the higher level, he has hit .362 (8-for-21), giving him early pro totals of a .362 average with 17 RBI in 14 games.

Peete already has played short, second base and third in his young career. Those were the three positions played by Lazzeri, the first slugger to hit two slams in one MLB game. He was in his 11th year as a member of the New York Yankees’ vaunted Murderer’s Row lineup when he did it in 1936. It helped him to his seventh season of 100 or more RBI, though Lazzeri was not a classic slugger like teammates Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He never hit more than 18 homers in a season and totaled 178 in his career, but as primarily a second baseman, he displayed more power than most players at that spot in that era.

Six big-leaguers, like Peete, connected in consecutive innings for slams including Robinson for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970. Switch-hitter Bill Mueller did it for the Boston Red Sox in 2003 during a three-homer outburst. Mueller’s slams were unique as he is the only man to hit one from each side of the plate in the same game.

Only Fernando (Ta-Ta) Tatis has ever hit two in the same inning. Tatis, playing third base for the St. Louis Cardinals, hit both off Chan-Ho Park of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the third inning of a game in 1999.

That was only the second time a player accomplished the feat in a National League game. The first was a pitcher. Tony Cloninger not only notched a complete-game win for the Atlanta Braves over the San Francisco Giants in 1966, he also clouted grand slams in the first and fourth innings to give himself plenty of run support in a 17-3 thrashing.

Here’s a few words of word of caution before putting Peete on a pedestal. Not every young phenom becomes a big-league great. Ask Marshall McDougall. He had a career in one afternoon at Florida State on May 9, 1999, just two weeks after Tatis made headlines. McDougall didn’t hit a grand slam. He did crash six homers in six times up, driving in 16 runs in a wild win over Maryland. The outfielder was drafted by Oakland a year later and finally made the majors in 2005 with the Texas Rangers. He hit .167 (3-for-18). He kept chasing the dream by playing in the minors, Mexico and China until 2012.

While Peete’s sweet feat matched several minor-leaguers, here’s a list of the 13 MLB hitters with two grand slams in one game:

Tony Lazzeri, 1936 Yankees vs. Athletics

Jim Tabor, 1939 Red Sox vs. Athletics

Rudy York, 1946 Red Sox vs. Browns

• Jim Gentile, 1961 Orioles vs. Twins

Tony Cloninger, 1966 Braves vs. Giants

• Jim Northrup, 1968 Tigers vs. Indians
• Frank Robinson, 1970 Orioles vs. Senators
• Robin Ventura, 1995 White Sox vs. Rangers

Chris Hoiles, 1998 Orioles Indians

Fernando Tatis, 1999 Cardinals vs. Dodgers

Nomar Garciaparra, 1999 Red Sox vs. Mariners

• Bill Mueller, 2003 Red Sox vs. Rangers
• Josh Willingham, 2009 Nationals vs. Brewers
• Hit in consecutive innings