Lazaro Montes keeps doing the kind of damage that makes a ballpark go quiet for a second.
On Friday night, the Mariners’ No. 5 prospect crushed a 115.9 mph go-ahead two-run homer for Triple-A Tacoma in a 6-5 win over Sacramento at Sutter Health Park. It was his 36th homer of the season, his hardest-hit ball of 2026, and it pushed him into sole possession of second place on the Minor League home run leaderboard.
That’s the kind of power that puts Montes in rare air. With a 65-grade power tool, the 21-year-old has become one of the Minors’ most dangerous sluggers, and the raw numbers back it up.
At the big league level, only five homers have been hit harder in 2026. Montes’ blast matched the 115.9 mph marks of Yordan Alvarez on May 8 and Nick Kurtz on April 24, both of whom rank in the 97th percentile or higher in average exit velocity.
The homers have come in waves for Montes this month. He’s already put together two separate three-game homer streaks, and Friday’s shot gave him eight home runs in August with a 1.087 OPS. That puts him on pace for his second-best monthly mark of the year, trailing only June’s 1.199.
Across the Minors this season, only Milwaukee’s No. 5 prospect Andrew Fischer, who has 38 homers, has gone deep more often. Montes has answered with the same kind of boom-or-bust profile that usually comes with elite power. He carried a 30.6 percent strikeout rate through play Friday, and that number has climbed since his promotion to the Minors’ highest level in early July.
Still, when he does connect, the ball jumps. Montes entered Friday with a 53.8 hard-hit rate, tied for third among Triple-A hitters with at least 150 plate appearances. If that pace were translated to the majors, it would rank 12th, ahead of names like Alvarez, Shohei Ohtani, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Elly De La Cruz.
The swing-and-miss is part of the package. So is the production.
Montes has posted a .581 slugging percentage in 36 Triple-A games, a rate that would stand as the best single-level mark of his career. He’s done plenty of that damage against pitchers with big league experience, too - seven of his 11 homers at Triple-A have come off arms that have spent time in the Majors.
And while Montes was launching rockets in Tacoma, Seattle had its own prospect spotlight. Saturday night brings the Major League debut of 2025 first-round pick Kade Anderson, baseball’s top-ranked pitching prospect and one of the most-hyped collegiate arms in years, against the Cubs.
The Mariners are fighting for a playoff spot, and the offense has been dragging its feet - tied for last in the Majors in OPS at .684 through play Friday. That makes it fair to wonder whether one of the Minors’ most explosive bats could be next in line for a call.
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Lazaro Montes has continued to make a strong case for himself in the minors, where the offensive production has been hard to ignore. With 37 home runs and a hefty OPS at Triple-A Tacoma, hes the kind of internal option that could force a decision when rosters expand on September 1, even if the Mariners have not announced any move yet. [Read more 🡒]
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