Max Acosta making some obscure HR history with Miami Marlins

It's certainly been an interesting first week in MLB for Miami Marlins shortstop Max Acosta.

On the one hand, if he doesn't start hitting more consistently, he might be out of a job as soon as the weekend. Marlins third baseman Connor Norby is wrapping up a rehab assignment, and the club will undoubtedly want to see Norby as much as possible over the next month to see what they have with him. Norby starting would suddenly put Acosta and Javier Sanoja in danger of filling very similar roles on Miami's bench. Sanoja has been great, offensively and defensively. Meanwhile, Acosta has only three hits, and has struck out five times in his first 18 AB. That's bad enough for a woeful .167 BA to go along with a .211 OBP.

But on the other hand, all three of those hits have left the ballpark.

Yep, three career hits. Three home runs. Since making his debut last week, no one on the team has homered more than Acosta. That third homer? It actually proved to be the game winner. It's quite the start to a career impact wise. If nothing else, Edward Cabrera (that game's winning pitcher) owes him a nice dinner.

Obviously, this kind of sample size means next to nothing. Maybe Acosta becomes an everyday MLB player that hits for a high. Maybe he's sent down in a week and never again returns to the majors. Granted those are extremes, but the point is that as of this morning, I wouldn't want to bet heavily on any kind of Acosta prediction or projection. Which is how one should feel about any player with 18 MLB at bats to his name.

However, that's an offseason problem! Today, let's have some fun looking back at other obscure Marlins HR history, and where Acosta fits in.

The three career hits, three career home runs thing? Certainly a Marlins first. Yet oddly enough, according to the Elias sports bureau, such a feat has happened at the MLB level five times in the last ten years. So it's an accomplishment that, while rare, also seems to have happened way more often than I any recollection of having heard about. Perhaps that's just one further indication that starting a career at this pace does not a Hall of Fame career make.

Marlins history wise though? Acosta has moved well ahead of the fraternity he joined last week when his first MLB career hit left the yard. Fifteen Marlins players have done that much. Jerar Encarnacion was the last one to do it, and hit a grand slam no less in the process. One game later, he was out of the majors, and didn't return until August. Jeremy Hermida also famously hit a grand slam for his first Marlins and/or MLB hit. He stuck around, but would go nearly a month before homering again.

Hermida, along with the known only to the real ones Joe Dunand, have long held the Marlins first HR obscurity title for homering in their first MLB at bat- with Hermida probaby getting the edge on the strength of the granny and it being a pinch hit appearance at that. While those are the only Marlins to be able to make that claim, it actually turns out that quite a few players that went on to play for Miami did the same thing. Starlin Castro, Greg Dobbs, MIke Jacobs, Starling Marte, Miguel Olivo, Carlos Lee, and Jorge Soler all started their careers in the same fashion.

But three hits, three homers? That's a new one, even for a franchise with plenty of quirky history.

Here's hoping Acosta can keep it going at least a little while longer. He's already going to be a mainstay of Marlins Jeopardy for years to come. One or two more blasts, and he just might be headed for the history books.