CHICAGO — It was the kind of epic game that more will claim to have attended than actually did.

Cardinals rookie Joshua Baez, promoted on Saturday and launched into history by Saturday afternoon, had the greatest major league debut by a hitter ever. Period. Baez homered on the first pitch he saw in the majors and did not stop there until he was the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit three home runs in his first big league game.

He did so in his first three at-bats.

And that only begins to describe his afternoon adding a legend to the longstanding rivalry between the Cardinals and Cubs at Wrigley Field.

He announced his arrival with authority.

The top power prospect in the system began his career with a bolt that traveled 449 feet to center field. In his next at-bat, he pulled a pitch into the left-field bleachers 382 feet away. In his third at-bat, he drove a ball 368 feet to right field.

He has yet to take a swing and miss in his career.

Baez’s three homers and five RBIs paced the Cardinals to an 8-4 victory in front of 39,834 to witness the beginning of a career unlike any previous. All three of his home runs came against Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd. The first expanded the Cardinals’ early lead to three runs, and Baez’s second broke a 3-3 tie to give the Cardinals the lead for good.

No other Cardinal had hit two home runs in his MLB debut game.

He became the 11th Cardinal to hit a home run in his first at-bat and the second to homer in the first two at-bats of his big-league career. No other player in major league history had ever had a debut as powerful Baez’s three home runs in his first three at-bats.

The Cubs did not get Baez out until the seventh inning, and he even then he smoked a line drive to left field that caught the left fielder as much as he caught it.

So intent on winning the game and cementing its place as one of the most memorable in Cardinals history at the Friendly Confines, the Cardinals called on closer Riley O’Brien to pitch a scoreless ninth inning despite it not being a save opportunity.

Subplot to history

Lurking beneath the greatest debut by a hitter in big league history was a starter returning to his stretch of routine, a quality start from Michael McGreevy.

Other than three unearned runs that came after a fielding error in the second inning, McGreevy stymied the Cubs through his six innings. The Cardinals right-hander made six innings a habit through the early and middle portions of this season, but he’d hit a speed bump in his previous three starts. McGreevy allowed 12 runs over those starts and his last quality start had come July 23.

McGreevy found his groove quickly against the Cubs.

He retired the first five batters he faced, and it would have been six if not for an error. He kept them grounded with seven groundouts, and when he allowed a leadoff hit in the fourth inning it wasn’t long before he got the ground-ball double play to end the inning. Through five innings, Cubs leadoff hitter and MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong struggled to connect against McGreevy. He had two fly outs before stabbing a meek grounder to second base to leadoff the fifth inning.

McGreevy ended that inning with two of his six strikeouts.

McGreevy had 11 swings and misses in the game, four of them came on his change-up and three of those were the final pitches of strikeouts.

First pitch, first homer

The moment that the baseball cleared the bleachers, Baez already had a significant feat.

One pitch into his major league career, and he had his first home run.

Brought to the plate in the first inning by a series of strong at-bats by his teammates, Baez jumped on a fastball from Boyd and sent it hurtling 449 feet and out beyond the bleachers in center field. He is the first Cardinal to hit a home run on the first pitch of his career since Adam Wainwright did in 2006 and the first position player since Chris Richard in 2000. Baez became the 11th Cardinal in the past 90 years to homer in his first at-bat.

Baez’s homer gave the Cardinals a 3-0 lead before he took the field.

How the Cardinals got the first inning to him began with leadoff hitter JJ Wetherholt.

One of the leading candidates for this year’s NL Rookie of the Year award, Wetherholt felt behind 0-2 to Boyd to begin the game. Wetherholt fouled off three two-strike pitches to eventually get the count full. On the ninth pitch of his plate appearance — spoiler — Wetherholt watched a ball fade out of the zone and took first.

He would score on a groundout for the first lead, and that gave him a view from the dugout as Baez drove the pitch to center.

Baez’s first bolt scored him and Alec Burleson.

Other Cardinals get in on fun

Burleson did more than contribute a baserunner to Baez’s historic day.

He got in on the display of power too.

Burleson was one of two Cardinals to also hit home runs as they opened up an 8-3 lead going into the bottom of the eighth inning. In the seventh, just ahead of Baez’s fourth at-bat, Burleson sent his 20th home run of the season above and beyond the ivy. An inning earlier, third baseman Blaze Jordan homered for the second time this season.

Burleson was on base for two of Baez’s earlier home runs, and as he jockeys with Jordan Walker for the team lead in RBIs, the home run gave him two for the game.

Jordan’s homer was part of a three-run sixth inning that peaked with Baez’s historic third home run but did not end there. Baez’s two-run shot came two batters into the inning, and Jordan followed two batters later with a solo home run into the left-field seats.

That one time Cubs answered

It took an inning, but the Cubs knotted the game, 3-3, before Baez got his second at-bat.

An error gave them the opportunity.

McGreevy retired the first two batters of the second inning to get into the back half of the Cubs’ lineup for the first time. Nico Hoerner, who made a rare start at shortstop Saturday, skipped a grounder to third base, but Jordan didn’t glove the ground ball at third cleanly and McGreevy had to find an extra out. Three runs later he was able to end the inning.

A double by Pedro Ramirez moved him and Hoerner into scoring position, and a home run by Michael Conforto knotted the game.

Conforto tucked his 10th homer of the season into the nook just above the right-field wall for a three-run loft that answered the Cardinals’ first-inning rally.

It was not enough to keep up with Baez.

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