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Astros prospect accomplishes never before seen feat at plate, continues 2024 breakout

One of the Astros' more overlooked prospects just made history down in the minor leagues.
Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Houston Astros v Detroit Tigers / Nic Antaya/GettyImages

The Houston Astros' farm system isn't really known for being particularly strong or deep at the moment. Their top prospect, Jacob Melton, is currently nursing a wrist injury and there isn't really much to be excited for down there outside of Joey Loperfido, who should probably still be with the big league club.

However, one unheralded Astros prospect did manage to put on a show this week.

Catcher and sometimes outfielder John Garcia is not a prospect many Astros fans are going to be familiar with at the moment. He doesn't ranked among MLB Pipeline's top 30 Astros prospects and he is coming off a 2023 season where he hit .223 with a .688 OPS. Again, not a guy that would normally get much press.

However, Garcia pulled off a near-impossible feat on Wednesday when he hit five doubles in a game, which no MLB player has ever accomplished. In even better news, it was also a continuation of what has been a breakout season for him in 2024

Breakout Astros prospect John Garcia makes history down in the minors

Getting five hits of any kind in a game is already hard to do. Getting five extra-base hits in a game is something that is exceedingly rare, as only 14 players have ever done that in MLB history, with Adolis Garcia being the most recent example. Garcia managing to do so while all five hits being doubles is now a club he created all for himself, and that is amazing.

If this was just one of those one-off performances from a guy that fans never heard from again, it would just be a mild curiosity. However, Garcia has actually turned into a legitimate prospect this year as he is slashing .283/.368/.428 which, as a catcher, is more than reasonable. If he keeps this up, he is going to start popping up on more organizational prospect rankings in a hurry.

We still have a long ways to go before that happens, although it wouldn't be a shock if we see Houston push Garcia to Double-A soon to see if his offensive turnaround is actually real.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.