Tyce Armstrong

Baylor’s lineup drew 8 walks and absorbed 5 hit-by-pitches against New Mexico State on February 14. That’s 13 free baserunners. Four times, those free baserunners loaded the bases. Three of those four times, Tyce Armstrong cleared them.

Grand slam in the third inning. Grand slam in the fourth. Grand slam in the seventh. Each one a different at-bat, a different situation, a different pitcher adjusting to the knowledge that the previous approach hadn’t worked. The aggregate — 12 RBI in a 15–2 run-rule win — is historic. But the sequencing matters more than the total. Armstrong didn’t do this in a blowout where the game was already decided. His first slam made it a blowout. The second turned it into a demolition. The third was punctuation on an evening that already belonged to him.

The only other player in NCAA Division I history to hit three grand slams in a single game was Jim LaFountain of Louisville, on March 24, 1976. Fifty years. Every first baseman, every designated hitter, every cleanup bat in every program in the country for half a century — and the record stood until a Friday night in Waco. ESPN named Armstrong Player of the Week. He finished the full opening weekend with 14 RBI.

Armstrong was held hitless in Games 2 and 3. Twelve RBI on Friday, two RBI on sac flies and groundouts over the weekend’s final two games. That’s the data point scouts will weigh most carefully. A historic Friday followed by two quiet days against the same pitching staff tells you the power is real but the approach is still developing.

The hit tool is the question. Armstrong doesn’t have a consistent two-strike approach yet — when he’s in hitter’s counts, the bat speed and raw power are undeniable. But the three grand slams all came in situations where New Mexico State’s staff was pitching to contact or missing over the plate. When the staff adjusted — expanded the zone, pitched him off the plate — Armstrong chased and came up empty. That pattern is what separates a hitter who matched a 50-year record from a hitter who sustains top-10-round draft value over a full season.

First basemen carry a higher offensive bar than shortstops or catchers. The position provides no defensive premium. To be a first-round pick at first base, you need to hit — not for one game, not for one weekend, but across an entire conference schedule. J.T. Realuto was drafted 48th overall as a catcher. Paul Goldschmidt was drafted 246th as a first baseman. The position demands production that the Opening Weekend data, extraordinary as it was, cannot yet confirm.

Armstrong wasn’t in the preseason conversation for Baylor’s key players. The Bears’ offseason headliners were Blake Wright (Mississippi State transfer, .293/.381/.512, 14 HR) and Will Dion (Duke transfer, 3.78 ERA, 71 K). Armstrong was the lineup piece nobody was talking about nationally — a physical first baseman with raw power who hadn’t translated that power into sustained production.

That changes the evaluation. Breakout performers in Opening Weekend either confirm what scouts already believed (Cholowsky) or introduce a new variable the scouting community hasn’t fully assessed (Armstrong). Armstrong is the latter. Scouts who weren’t at the NMSU series need to get to Waco and see whether the bat speed and approach hold against Big 12 arms — or whether the Opening Weekend was the kind of aberration that makes for a great highlight package but doesn’t project to pro ball.

Mack Thompson’s lineup has been built around small ball and manufacturing runs for most of his tenure. Armstrong’s emergence gives Baylor a middle-of-the-order power threat they haven’t had in years — the kind of bat that changes pitch sequencing for the hitters around him. If he sustains even a fraction of the Opening Weekend production against conference pitching, the Bears become a different team in the Big 12 race.