'The Martian' shows out on big day for RailRiders

Extraterrestrial activity is on the rise in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and it’s all thanks to Jasson Domínguez.

After homering in a two-hit game Saturday, "The Martian" upped the ante on Sunday with another jack and four knocks in the Triple-A RailRiders' 12-11 extra-inning win over the Norfolk Tides at PNC Field.

The game marked the third straight multihit contest for Domínguez, matching his career high in hits. MLB’s No. 30 prospect previously tallied four knocks twice last season and twice in 2022.

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“Seeing him this week, he's been absolutely outstanding,” RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan said. “Maybe the first day or two, it looked like he's knocking some rust off, but he immediately got into gear. These last couple of days, he's done some absolutely electric things. It’s a lot of fun for everybody to watch.”

Domínguez started off with a scorching ground-ball single in the first inning. Batting from the left side, the Yankees' No. 1 prospect jumped on a sinker and sent a 109.5 mph hot shot off Norfolk starter Julio Teheran’s foot. The ball ricocheted to second base as Domínguez made it safely to first.

In the third inning, the Dominican Republic native blooped a single into no-man's land behind first base and advanced to third on a fielding error by baseball's top prospect Jackson Holliday at second.

One frame later, Domínguez showed every ounce of his 60-grade power, walloping a towering 429-foot moonshot off the veteran right-hander that cleared the berm in right-center field and then some. The solo shot was his sixth in 19 games since returning from Tommy John surgery and raised his slash line for the season to .380/.429/.690.

"He got a pitch up in the zone, and his timing was right on it,” said Duncan, who spent parts of seven years in the big leagues. “It's almost like he's in a place right now where anything over the plate, no matter what pitch it is, he's ready to hit it hard.

“He got the head out and he hit it a mile. And there’s a little jet stream up there too. So when you get that 429 off the bat ... and then you add in that jet stream, it's probably a lot further than that. He crushed it.”

The switch-hitting center fielder added one more knock in the eighth before coming out of the game in the 10th.

Domínguez endeared himself to Yankees fans last season when he slugged four roundtrippers in eight big league games after his September callup. He's been showing that kind of prodigious power during his rehab stint after undergoing Tommy John surgery a few weeks after making his Major League debut.

“He has been awesome with everybody, fits right in,” Duncan said. “That's the same old Jasson that we saw last year while he was here. Electric personality, has a smile on his face, plays hard, willing to do anything. Has a true love for the game and his personality is contagious and makes his teammates better.”

There's no set timeline on when there will be Martian sightings in the Big Apple, but Domínguez increasingly seems like he'll be ready for the call when it comes.