To say he couldn’t have drawn it up better is only a touch untrue. But catcher Francisco Pena has been around baseball his entire life, so he knows more than to second-guess anything about the occasion of his first major league home run.
It could have been a touch sweeter if his father, Yankees bench coach and former major league catcher Tony Pena, had been here, as he will be starting Friday. Instead, a different father-son dynamic played out in the moments following his first home run, which came in a 12-7 Orioles win over the Boston Red Sox — Pena’s own son was there at his locker, enjoying the occasion with him.