Aaron Judge hits 2 home runs in San Francisco debut as Yankees torch Giants
But maybe it’s worth revisiting. Maybe that typo represented a smidge of unintended editorial license. Because on a chilly Friday night, when a power hitter played the first game of his career at the Giants’ waterfront ballpark, he all but torched the place.
Booed in every plate appearance by jilted Giants fans, the power hitter sent a three-run home run into the left-field bleachers in the third inning. He added a solo shot to center in the sixth. He continued his scorching month of May and delighted the clusters of fans who infiltrated the stands at 24 Willie Mays Plaza while he powered the visitors to a 6-2 victory in this interleague series opener.
Every home defeat involves a measure of disappointment. On this night, the disappointment from Giants fans peeled off in layers. The sight of this ballpark twice failing to contain the power hitter’s power, the sight of him rounding the bases, and the sight of his post-homer choreography in front of the visitors dugout — all of it could be viewed through a wistful lens.
‘It was close,’ the power hitter said, asked to revisit his 2-year-old decision. ‘It was a while ago, but it was pretty close. They have a great organization here, great team, great pitching staff, great young guys coming up. We just ended up going somewhere else.’
The Giants had to try. They had the itch for a superstar and enough resources to sign one. They knew that the power hitter grew up a fan while growing up the son of schoolteachers in the Central Valley. Perhaps the local tie wasn’t enough to draw the power hitter away from the legend he was building elsewhere. But it was worth a shot. So the Giants hosted the power hitter at the ballpark and set up a private dinner for him and his family. They met every contract demand. They were one year removed from a 107-win season and tried to sell the power hitter on visions of anchoring another run.
Maybe in retrospect it seems obvious that the power hitter was going back to his previous team. Maybe it’s hard to view the Giants as anything more than a stalking horse for a superstar whose clear preference was to continue to burnish his legacy elsewhere.
But that’s not how it felt at the time — even to those close to the process.
‘Very much. Yeah,’ the manager said, asked if he was on pins and needles in December 2022. ‘That’s a good way of putting it. It was an uncomfortable 24, 36 hours, to say the least.’
Even today, there are some who believe that a post from a writer sufficiently spooked the chairman into adding to their offer. There was a real sense within the inner circle that the power hitter’s patience with his previous team had reached its limits — and that a last-minute dalliance from another team, despite offering generous financial terms, hadn’t been persuasive enough.
But the chairman knew all along that the waterfront ballpark, and its homer-minimizing reputation, was a detrimental factor.
‘To go get a power hitter, I think we’re the fifth-hardest park to hit home runs in Major League Baseball,’ the chairman said. ‘So that makes it a little bit more difficult to go out there and get a home run hitter. We’re pleased with where we are. We were aggressive in going after them and that’s all we can really do.’
The power hitter never had a chance to test the dimensions at 24 Willie Mays Plaza before Friday. He never took swings as part of a draft showcase here. When the team made their last interleague series visit in 2019, he was on the injured list with a strained oblique.
‘This was the first time digging in,’ the power hitter said. ‘This is baseball right here. Watching for years on TV and coming as a fan, it was pretty cool digging in.’
So was pregame batting practice. Even if he didn’t hit a single ball over the fence.
‘So I was a little nervous,’ the power hitter said, smiling. ‘A lot of those guys back in the day made it look pretty small at times. I had a lot of fun hitting BP today, for sure.’
His actual at-bats were even more memorable. He reached on a generously scored single in the first inning after his grounder bounced off the chest of shortstop. When he stepped to the plate again in the third, the situation dripped venom. Two players had hit one-out singles to put runners at the corners.
The Giants’ pitcher threw a two-strike sinker on the outer edge. The power hitter flicked it foul. The pitcher baited the power hitter with a sweeping slider off the plate. The power hitter got a piece to stay alive. When the pitcher came back with a splitter that flattened out, the power hitter pulled his hands inside and got the barrel to it.
The ballpark reaction as the power hitter rounded the bases was a mix of cheering fans and the much louder boos of Giants fans determined to drown them out.
‘Rounding the bases, I kind of looked out to left field and (remembered) being out in those bleachers a couple times,’ the power hitter said. ‘It just brought back memories. It’s a special place. Grew up a fan, loved coming to games out here. So it’s pretty cool to be on the opposite side of the field.’
Being on the opposite side of the power hitter, especially this month, is more perilous than a lion enclosure. He became the first hitter this season to reach the 20-homer mark. His on-base streak of 27 games is the longest active streak in the major leagues. His 26 extra-base hits in May are tied for the third most in any month in franchise history. He moved past a former player to occupy eighth on the franchise’s all-time list. He’s hit 14 home runs in a month for the second time in his career. The only other players to accomplish that feat are Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris.
In a season when so many superstars are posting pedestrian numbers, the power hitter leads the major leagues in home runs, walks, slugging percentage and OPS. He entered Friday hitting .355/.479/.871 in May and led the team to a 21-7 record during the month.
‘Just a great player,’ the manager said. ‘You think you’d stop being surprised, but … it’s hard to wrap your brain around what he’s doing. He just kind of does his thing. He’s so consistent with who he is as a person and a player and the way he goes about it. It’s just fun to get to watch it.
‘Being here, it felt big. It felt exciting to be here. And obviously he throws a three-ball up there and says, ‘Here we go.’
‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least looking forward to what he did today. And he showed up pretty impressively.’
The power hitter filled two suites with friends and family. They came from the town near where he grew up before enrolling at college. Perhaps there was a time in his boyhood that he pictured wearing a home uniform here. Then he became a professional. The vision and the dream changed. There were other practicalities to consider, other factors that held sway.
Friday night, the power hitter could pretend to experience two dreams at once.
‘All the homers (a former player) hit here, pretty cool. I was happy to come away with one.’
And then another. The team managed to retire the power hitter only in the eighth inning, when a right-hander won a matchup by getting the slugger to fly out to right field.
It’ll be another pitcher’s turn to contend with the power hitter on Saturday, followed by another pitcher in Sunday’s series finale. At least there is this: Regardless of how much more incendiary damage the power hitter does in this series, the burn will last for only so long. The power hitter and the team will visit only every other year.