Domínguez three times as good in Triple-A debut

The Martian has landed in Triple-A, and his debut was out of this world.

Starting in center field and batting second, Jasson Dominguez went 3-for-6 with three RBIs and a run scored in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s 14-1 rout of Lehigh Valley at PNC Field.

“I saw a very exciting player to watch,” said RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan. “He was manning center field, had some good jumps on balls, showed his range that he has out there. And then I saw a guy that put together some very aggressive at-bats and barreled up three balls extremely hard.”

What Duncan described was a five-tool player: someone who can hit for average and power as well as run, throw and field at a high level, and Domínguez fits the bill.

In Double-A, the No. 79 prospect in baseball slashed .254/.367/.414 with 15 homers, 37 stolen bases, 83 runs, 66 RBIs and a pair of outfield assists over 109 games. On Tuesday, several of those skills were displayed. Two of his three knocks came off the bat over 105 mph -- 107.4 and 109.2 -- and he crushed a double off the wall that was inches away from leaving the yard.

The Yankees' No. 2 prospect’s first Triple-A hit came in the fourth inning from the left side. He flipped around to the right in the sixth before crushing his first extra-base hit and finishing it off with another single in the same inning for good measure.

“It’s fun hearing all the hype that he’s built up this season,” Duncan said. “Then to come out here and have a 3-for-6 day with three lasers, it’s definitely an energy that was infectious to this team. One through nine, we felt it, and it was fun to watch.”

At Triple-A, Duncan will be looking for Domínguez to work on the intangibles of baseball. With no shortage of raw talent, the RailRiders manager and former Major Leaguer wants to help the 20-year-old Dominican Republic native improve his baseball IQ -- where to throw balls, what to do on the bases -- the stuff that doesn’t show up in the box score but helps teams win games.

“When you shore up all that and then you mix in the talent that he has, that creates a championship-caliber player and that’s the kind we want to develop for New York,” Duncan said.