Meet the former Alamogordo resident making a big impact in the minors

Jun. 9—He's from New Mexico.

He's a professional baseball player in the Houston Astros organization.

He's looked right at home playing baseball this week in Isotopes Park.

But, no. He's not that guy.

In fact, unlike it would be if Albuquerque-native Alex Bregman ever played a professional game in the Duke City, Quincy Hamilton's Triple-A debut this week for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys came with almost no fanfare of the sort.

That's because most people around Isotopes Park didn't even realize the 24-year-old outfielder who grew up in Alamogordo was actually "from New Mexico" at all.

It doesn't show up anywhere on his college bio at Wright State or in write ups about him when he was a 5th-round draft pick of the Astros in 2021, rather only referencing his standout careers at Centerville (Ohio) High School and at Wright State, where he was an All-American, hitting .347 and was named the 2021 Horizon League Player of the Year.

"I guess nobody really knew because I didn't graduate from there, but I lived in Alamogordo for like 10 years until after my freshman year of high school," said Hamilton.

"I love that place," he added, even playfully throwing out a "Go Tigers" at the end of a pregame interview in the visiting dugout Friday at Isotopes Park — with a reporter who also went to Alamogordo High School.

While he only played one season of high school ball for those Tigers, he added he did plenty of traveling around the state for baseball tournaments and games playing for the Young Guns travel baseball team based out of Alamogordo, a team he said Friday was a blast to play on.

Hamilton's parents were both stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, just eight miles southwest of Alamogordo, and they moved to Ohio after his freshman year of high school. He and his older brother, Akhil, who Quincy said is a year older than him and his best friend, spent most of their school age years growing up in southern New Mexico.

Though he said he hadn't been back to the state since he left about a decade ago, Hamilton sure looked right at home in his Wednesday night Triple-A debut against the Isotopes.

Hitting out of the seven hole, the 5-foot-10, 190-pound Hamilton homered in each of his first two at bats on Wednesday, including one that traveled 444 feet through the thin Albuquerque air. He finished the night 2-for-3 at the plate with a walk, 3 RBIs and a Sugar Land victory, 5-4.

It was the second multi-homer game of Hamilton's young career, which started on the professional level on Aug. 7, 2021, with the Single-A Fayetteville (North Carolina) Woodpeckers of the Low-A East league.

Thursday, Hamilton got moved from right to center field and from the 7 spot in the lineup to leadoff hitter. He homered again — making it three homers in his first two Triple-A games.

He did not play in Friday night's game at Isotopes Park, a 10-8 Isotopes loss.

On the season, through 44 games at Double-A Corpus Christi and now two with Triple-A Sugar Land, Hamilton is hitting .273 with nine home runs, 35 RBIs and he's drawn 25 walks.

He is ranked as the Astros No. 22 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, though he has no specific timeline in his mind about when he hopes he'll get that call up to the Major League level.

"You can't really think about that," Hamilton said. "I don't really control that. I feel like I ran into some trouble last year trying to control everything or getting bothered when things didn't go my way. Then I really started to focus on just focusing on the things I can control.

"Do my best, be a good teammate and not really thinking too much about the results. Just keep it simple."

Hamilton said he was able to have two friends from Alamogordo see him play on Wednesday and Thursday and said there's a good chance that when Sugar Land plays at El Paso laster this summer, his family would travel there to watch him play and be able to get to Alamogordo — 90 miles away — to visit some of their old family friends still living there.

As for that Bregman connection, Hamilton said he was able to talk some during spring training with the Astros All-Star third baseman and even learned his longtime personal hitting coach is an Alamogordo High graduate and former baseball star himself, Jason Columbus.

Asked how cool it would be to have two players with New Mexico DNA in that Astros lineup one day soon, Hamilton smiled.

"That's the hope."