Welcome to the show, Joey Meneses. After 11-year wait, former Red Wing homers in MLB debut

Joey Meneses waited more than 11 years to step onto a Major League Baseball field, and when it finally happened Tuesday night at Nationals Park, who was he staring out at on the pitchers’ mound?

None other than Jacob deGrom, arguably the best pitcher in baseball when he’s healthy which, to be fair, he hasn’t been too often the past couple years.

Talk about a baptism by fire. deGrom was making his season debut for the New York Mets and pitching in his first game in about one calendar year, and when Meneses came to the plate in the bottom of the second, deGrom struck him out swinging on four pitches.

But in the fifth, the last inning deGrom would pitch, he left one out over the plate and Meneses hit it deep down the right field line where Starling Marte made the catch just in front of the fence.

Clearly feeling a little more confident when he stepped in for his third at bat in the seventh, with reliever Yoan Lopez in the game, Meneses hammered the first pitch he saw over the fence in right-center for his first MLB home run, a 405-foot shot off a 96 mph fastball that finished the Nationals’ surprising 5-1 victory over the NL East-leading Mets.

Meneses, who has been the Rochester Red Wings’ first baseman and best hitter all season, was called up to the Nationals Tuesday morning along with outfielder Josh Palacios in the seismic wake of Washington’s trading Juan Soto and Josh Bell to San Diego.

The two Wings were already in Columbus getting ready for Tuesday night’s game - one the Wings eventually lost 2-0 for their franchise-record-tying 12th consecutive defeat - before scrambling to make their way to the nation’s capitol.

Both players were inserted into the Nationals lineup and while Meneses went 1-for-4 and played first base, Palacios - who made his MLB debut last year with the Blue Jays - went 0-for-3 playing right field.

For the 30-year-old Meneses, it was the culmination of a mountain of work since the Atlanta Braves signed him as a 19-year-old out of Culiacan, Mexico in 2011.

He spent seven years kicking around the Braves system never advancing past Double-A, then went to the Phillies organization in 2018 where he made his Triple-A debut with Lehigh Valley, had 23 homers, 82 RBI and was named International League player of the year.

That wasn’t enough for the Phillies to re-sign him so he went to Japan in 2019, to the Mexican league in 2020 when the minor leagues were shut down due to COVID, to the Red Sox in 2021, and then to the Nationals this year.

In all that time - which encompassed 1,376 games, 5,492 plate appearances, 133 homers, 721 RBI, a .280 batting average and a .767 OPS - he never pulled on a major league uniform until Tuesday night.

Last month, I spoke to Meneses about all the rumors floating around about a potential Soto trade at the Aug. 2 deadline, plus Bell, the Nationals’ season-long first baseman, also possibly being moved because he would be a free agent at the end of the season.

“We’ll see when the trade deadline comes, when that happens, maybe I can have a chance there if they trade some of the players,” Meneses said.

And then it happened, and Meneses was rewarded for a Wings season during which he has led Rochester with 20 homers, 64 RBI, 107 hits, 32 walks, and an OPS of .830.

“I am always looking for that dream and I never had the chance,” Meneses said then, “but I still have faith that one day, I can be there. Sometimes you are in the wrong team or in the wrong place and it’s hard to call me up. I think that’s the reason for not playing in the big leagues yet.”

That was something that Wings manager Matt LeCroy pointed to on Tuesday when he learned that Meneses had been called up. His path always seemed to be blocked by someone in the big leagues.

For instance, in 2018 when Meneses was tearing up the IL, the Phillies didn’t need him because Carlos Santana played 146 games at first base and had 24 homers and 86 RBI.

“I believe that Joey can hit in the big leagues for sure,” LeCroy said. “And if you look at his history, the teams he’s been on, he’s kind of always been behind somebody. It’s one of those positions playing first, or playing, right field or left field, an offensive position, it always seemed like there was a guy in front of him. I think that’s why he’s been in the minor leagues so long. They’ve always had somebody they’ve invested in that he won’t get the shot.”

With first baseman Luke Voit on his way to Washington as a late addition to the massive trade that sent Soto and Bell to San Diego in exchange for five prospects, it is uncertain how long Meneses will stay with the big league club.

But for one night, his long unfulfilled dream came true, and it’s a memory he’ll cherish for a lifetime.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's new twice-a-week newsletter, Bills Blast, please follow this link: profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Who is Joey Meneses? National rookie hits home run in MLB debut