MILWAUKEE (AP) — With one swing of the bat, Victor Caratini turned a forgettable performance into one of the most memorable moments of his career.
After striking out in each of his first four plate appearances, Caratini hit a three-run homer off Scott Effross with two outs in the 10th inning to give the Milwaukee Brewers a 5-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Monday.
“It’s a really hard sport,” Caratini said through a translator. “You know you’re going to fail. (It’s) just (a matter of) staying confident, going to next at-bat, knowing that you’ve got another at-bat and have got to be able to fight it, help the team win and move on from there.”
His big hit followed an eventful ninth inning that featured an inside-the-park homer from Chicago’s Seiya Suzuki and a two-out, bases-loaded walk by Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich.
Brewers officials said Caratini was the fifth major league player since 1900 to strike out in his first four plate appearances of a game before hitting a walk-off homer his fifth time up. The others were Mike Schmidt in 1983, Ray Knight in 1986, David Justice in 2001 and Derek Norris in 2015.
Chicago’s only other run came when rookie Nelson Velázquez hit his first career homer in the third inning. According to Stats Perform, this was the first time in major league history to feature one player hitting his first career homer, another hitting an inside-the-park homer and another producing a walk-off homer.
Caratini, who played with the Cubs from 2017-20, hit a 2-1 sinker from Effross (1-4) over the center-field wall for his second career walk-off homer. He also did it June 17, 2021, for San Diego against Cincinnati’s Amir Garrett.
“I called it,” Brewers catcher Pedro Severino said. “Because normally when you have a tough day, that big moment just comes…