Jasson Dominguez makes great first impression on teammates (and Justin Verlander)

HOUSTON — Aaron Judge called the feat “impressive” and “amazing.”

Jasson Dominguez going deep against  Justin Verlander  in his first big-league at-bat on Friday night tended to produce that kind of reaction.

“For him to go up there and in his first swing, the first ball he puts in play is a driven ball opposite field, that’s impressive,” said Judge, who also homered in his first career at-bat, off Rays righthander Matt Andriese on Aug. 13, 2016, at Yankee Stadium.  “Sometimes you see guys come up here and they’re a little anxious or a little eager so they’re pulling off the ball, trying to hit it as hard as they can. He just seems calm, cool and collected in the box. To see that out of a rookie, let alone at 20 years old, that’s pretty impressive.”

The Yankees, their youth movement now full-bore ahead, had five rookies in the starting lineup Friday night against the Astros, a club in a three-team battle for the AL West crown that appears headed for a photo finish.

Joining Dominguez in that quintet were Austin Wells — called up Friday along with Dominguez — Everson Pereira, Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe. The 22-year-old Volpe is the grizzled vet of the five, having made the club out of spring training as the team’s starting shortstop.

Still, the vast majority of attention going into the game, then during the game and after the game — which the Yankees won, 6-2 — went to Dominguez, who again started in centerfield Saturday night and was bumped up to third in the lineup.  

More specifically, the attention stemmed from  his first-inning at-bat against Verlander, a future Hall of Famer who has consistently throttled the Yankees throughout his 18-year career, whether it be with the Tigers, Mets or Astros (twice).

Verlander, 40, started out Dominguez with a darting breaking ball for a called strike, a pitch he wasn’t looking for.

“I wasn’t expecting a curveball on the first pitch for sure,” Dominguez said through his interpreter.

Pitch No. 2 was a 94-mph fastball in the strike zone that the switch hitter, batting lefthanded, lined the other way into the Crawford boxes overhanging leftfield for a memorable first career homer.

And not just memorable for the player dubbed “The Martian,” a nickname affixed shortly after the Yankees gave him a franchise-record $5.1 million signing bonus out of the Dominican Republic in July 2019.

"That's a way to announce your presence with authority,” Aaron Boone said.

Dominguez, at 20 years, 206 days old, became the youngest Yankee to homer in his major-league debut and the youngest Yankee to homer since Bobby Murcer (19 years, 117 days) on Sept. 14, 1965, at Washington. According to Elias, he became the fifth-youngest player in MLB history to homer in his first plate appearance.

“You can’t write it up any better than that, honestly,” said Wells, 24, a friend of Dominguez’s from their time together this year with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Carlos Rodon, who earned the victory Friday night after allowing two runs and three hits in five innings, noticed not only the homer but Dominguez’s other at-bats. The rookie finished 1-for-4 but lined out to left in his second at-bat, scalded a grounder to short his third time up and flied to deep left-center in his final at-bat.

“It seems like he has a good idea of what he’s doing with his bat,” Rodon said. “He’s got a tight swing and it seems like he has power to all fields. I haven’t watched Jasson much, but the three or four at-bats I watched, you can tell he has a good idea of what he wants to do at the plate.”

The pitcher on the receiving end of the blast also took note.  

“I kind of figured he would be [aggressive],” Verlander told reporters. “But first time facing him, I think you’ve got a kind of cat-and-mouse [game], trying to figure him out, he’s trying to figure me out. I think the first thing you’ve got to figure out is, where does he like to hit the ball? Apparently, right where I threw it.”