HOUSTON — This is still so new for Cam Smith, who was anointed an aircraft carrier before ever stepping foot in a Houston Astros complex. For one moment of his magical Friday night, he stopped to stare at the sellout crowd he captivated. Baseball’s best team came to town, but Smith stole the attention.
“The fourth deck,” he said with an almost amazed smile, “there were people filling up that whole row.”
Simple things to seasoned pros still stun Smith, the 22-year-old super prospect shouldering enormous expectations. He is a piece of this franchise’s future trying to keep it afloat in the present, a predicament few predicted in spring training but has now become reality.
Nothing about the first 19 games has consistency. Player development isn’t linear, a long-held baseball axiom that is playing out on a major-league stage.
Most in Smith’s position fail away from the public eye — in podunk minor-league towns playing games that carry no cache. Smith is starting in right field for a team angling for another American League Championship Series appearance in an era full of them.
“This is a long journey and he’s doing a nice job just pacing himself,” manager Joe Espada said after Friday’s 6-4 win against the San Diego Padres. “Sometimes we have to be careful (assessing) movement and progress.”
Doing his thing.#BuiltForThis pic.twitter.com/umjGytL9b9
— Houston Astros (@astros) April 19, 2025
On the day Smith became a savior for an offense searching for slug, it is a statement worth remembering. Measuring the evolution of such a precocious prospect isn’t a day-by-day activity. It is a prolonged process that requires patience, something Astros officials accepted when putting Smith on the Opening Day roster.
“Sometimes we want to slow things down with him — (or) any young player — reminding him to be successful you have to be patient, one swing at a time, one at-bat at a time,” Espada said. “He’s doing just that.”
Slugging two home runs against the Padres provided the latest portrait of how far Smith has come. At 22 years and 55 days old, Smith became the youngest Astro to have a multi-homer game since Yordan Alvarez accomplished it en route to unanimous AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2019.
“Honestly, I feel like me again,” Smith said. “A lot to learn (during) the first 19 games, but it’s a good feeling to produce for the guys.”
Alvarez, Carlos Correa, Joe Morgan, John Mayberry and Rusty Staub are the only players in franchise history younger than Smith to hit multiple home runs in a game. Correa, like Alvarez, won Rookie of the Year in the season of his two-homer game. Morgan finished runner-up in 1965 — the year he hit two home runs in a game twice before turning 22.
Smith’s OPS jumped from .591 to .745 in the span of four at-bats. He drove in more runs with one second-inning swing than cleanup man Christian Walker has all season. Smith’s fourth-inning home run allowed him to pass Alvarez on the team leaderboard.
If Houston hopes to accomplish any of its goals, those last two trends can’t continue. Smith is here to support this lineup. Asking him to carry it is an absurd request. For one night, though, Smith delivered, driving in four of Houston’s six runs.
“Confidence builder,” Espada said.
Only three offenses entered Friday with a lower slugging percentage than Houston’s .317 mark. Not once in the club’s first 18 games did a player hit multiple home runs. Smith needed four innings to become the first. Espada moved him to ninth in the batting order against San Diego starter Kyle Hart, perhaps to provide Jake Meyers more looks at a rare left-handed opponent.
No offense has taken fewer plate appearances against southpaws than an Astros outfit that is almost entirely right-handed. Smith took seven plate appearances against major-league left-handers before arriving at the ballpark Friday.
Home-plate umpire Doug Eddings squeezed Smith to start the eighth appearance, calling a borderline sweeper a strike. Hart left a second-pitch fastball at Smith’s belt. He pulled it 403 feet into the Crawford Boxes, a towering home run that differed from anything Smith had shown in his small big-league sample.
Smith awoke Friday pulling the baseball just 22.6 percent of the time. Only seven qualified major-league hitters did it less often. Success can come to all fields, but Smith’s lack of any presence to his pull side felt curious, especially after showcasing it in spring training. Of Smith’s pulled contact, just 6.5 percent of it came in the air.
“I was hoping that it would happen naturally and I wouldn’t really have to think about it,” Smith said of pulling the ball. “Fortunately, it did happen tonight. I caught it a little bit more out in front than I have been.”
More than half of Smith’s previous contact had gone to the opposite field. Smith said he is most natural going that way and it “completes me as a hitter,” but seizing advantage of the short porch at Daikin Park is prudent.
Hitting coaches Troy Snitker and Alex Cintrón have implored Smith to start his load and swing earlier, something he has acknowledged is difficult for him to grasp.
“My reactions weren’t quick enough,” Smith said, “so I had to pick a moment of the pitcher’s motion when I start my load.”
Smith chose the moment a pitcher shifts his weight forward. When it happens, Smith will lift his front leg and start his load. So much of Smith’s other offensive traits are advanced, be it his plate discipline or his swing decisions.
Coaches even encouraged him to be more aggressive early in counts instead of waiting on a perfect pitch. Smith obliged but retained his discerning eye. He did not swing at the first five pitches he saw from Hart in the fourth inning, allowing a diet of off-speed pitches to dot the outer half of his strike zone.
The sixth pitch was a sweeper that stayed up. Smith started his load at the moment Hart began his motion. He caught the mistake out in front, mashed it to left field and sent fans in the fourth deck into delirium.
“Seeing him pull the ball with authority is a really good sign,” Espada said.
(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)