Alu finally barrels up first homer

Jake Alu made his major league debut on May 9 in San Francisco. He recorded his first hit on May 12 in D.C. against the Mets. He drove in his first run here on Aug. 1 against the Brewers and got his first extra-base hit three days later in Cincinnati.

But he hadn’t yet hit one over the fence. Until last night.

The 26-year-old rookie, who was a 24th-round pick in 2019 out of Boston College, finally hit his first home run in last night’s 8-2 win over the Athletics.

Facing left-handed reliever Sam Long, the left bat hit a first-pitch 92-mph fastball 104 mph off the bat and 419 feet over the right-center field wall and trotted the bases for the first time on a major league diamond.

“Kind of was trying to get a swing off on a fastball, and I got it first pitch kind of up in the zone,” Alu said. “And I was able to barrel it up and finally get one out of there. “

It was only Alu’s 14th major league game, which doesn’t seem like that long of a wait. But if you take the four minor league seasons and two demotions back to Triple-A Rochester earlier in the year, it could feel much longer.

“Not necessarily thinking about it.” Alu said of waiting for that first homer. “More just kind of wanting to barrel some balls. I've been struggling a little bit as of late, but maybe that'll get me going.”

As is tradition when a player hits his first big league home run, Alu got the silent treatment when he got back to the dugout. He had to break it up somehow.

“I didn't get any actually,” he said of the reaction in the dugout. “They didn't do anything for me. But then they all came over and hugged me. Still I was trying to get them going early, but it was funny.”

“He got the silent treatment for a minute,” manager Davey Martinez said with a laugh.

Alu is only hitting .227 in the majors. But that swing was also accompanied by his go-ahead sac fly in the fourth inning, which proved to be the winning run. Now that his first homer is out of the way, he’s hoping he can find more consistency at the plate.

“I think so,” he said. “It's always good to just kind of build confidence when you start barreling some balls. So hopefully we can take that forward in the next few games.”

“He puts the bat on the ball,” Martinez said. “And he's another guy, too, that we got to talk to about just getting the ball in the strike zone. When he does that, he hits the ball well. But he's young and he'll learn that. He's just gotta get the ball in the strike zone. You saw what he can do when he does do that and against a left-handed pitcher. And he drove in a big run there with the sac fly as well. So he's gonna be OK. I like the way he's moving around at second base, too. He made a nice play up the middle today, so that's encouraging.”

The New Jersey native had a lot of family in attendance during the Nats’ recent four-game series in Philadelphia. They didn’t make it down to see his first homer in person, but they’ll hopefully be in D.C. soon. Especially his father, who Alu plans to give the home run ball to.

“Kind of just been all over the place,” he said of this past road trip. “It's good. I know we got a little bit of a homestand here, can finally settle in and hopefully get some wins.”

Now his focus can go back to just playing ball, instead of worrying about hitting a homer.

“You're in the books now,” he said. “It seems like it's like an official thing, so it's definitely exciting.”