New York — Austin Wells drove Freddy Peralta’s fastball into the first row of Yankee Stadium’s right-field short porch and landed in the history books: the first catcher in a century and a half of Major League Baseball to hit a leadoff home run on opening day.
“Obviously, not playing to break records,” he said, “but it’s pretty cool.”
Yogi Berra never did it. Neither did Bill Dickey, Elston Howard, Thurman Munson or Jorge Posada. Then again, until Thursday the Yankees had not had a catcher bat leadoff in any of their previous 19,451 games.
Wells’ home run, which would not have been out of any other big league ballpark, started the defending AL champions to a 4-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.
“There’s just presence to him,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
With the departure of Gleyber Torres to the Detroit Tigers, Boone needed a new leadoff hitter. He told Wells before his second spring training game, against Toronto on Feb. 28, he was being moved to the top of the order.
“I didn’t really take it seriously,” Wells said. “I thought maybe he’s like just messing with me, but then it just kind of continued to happen and had success, so here we are.”
Wells led off that exhibition game with a home run against Jake Bloss. Boone prefers a left-handed hitter with righty Aaron Judge moved up to the No. 2 slot following the loss of Juan Soto to the New York Mets as a free agent.
“I get it. It’s unconventional. It’s the catcher and it’s not a burner and all that,” Boone said. “I think that’s where he is as a hitter now.”
A first-round draft pick by the Yankees in 2020, Wells made his big league debut in September 2023 and was known for his bat and not his defense.
“The industry had real questions about him behind the plate, and as did we even coming up through the system,” Boone said. “It’s remarkable, really is, to see where he’s at now is — to me, one of the game’s really good defensive catchers. It’s a testament to the work he’s put in.”
New York hadn’t hit a catcher leadoff in 19,014 regular-season and 437 postseason games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Wells took two balls from Peralta, then turned on a 93.4 mph pitch at the top of the strike zone.
“Kind of exciting just to kind of getting to hit in front of Aaron Judge and try to get on base for him,” Wells said.
Judge smiled when he heard about that remark.
“Going all the way back to January, February working out with him, my man was focused and hungry and ready to go,” Judge said. “He’s just the ultimate team guy. It’s been fun to see him — even as a rookie he fit right into this team. He was comfortable. He was joking with us. He was having a good time, but he’s always been about the guy next to him. I think that’s where hearing the comment about `I’m just excited’ to hit in front of me, that just speaks volumes of what type of person he is.”
