Willy Adames' fitting walk-off in Giants' home opener follows script perfectly originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — There was no other way. The baseball gods wouldn’t allow it.
The Giants returned home with a sense that the chemistry, vibes, talent and, most importantly, winning that showed all spring was no fluke, that the first year of the second Buster Posey Era at Oracle Park could be something special. On what might be the most beautiful day in San Francisco all summer, they alternated good baseball with an ugly brand that would have fit in just fine the previous three seasons.
A sellout crowd cheered and groaned in equal measures during the first four-hour Giants game since the pitch clock was instituted. It went 11 innings, and when it was finally over, rookie starter Hayden Birdsong was the only pitcher left in either bullpen.
In the center of it all, for four hours and three minutes, was Willy Adames, the star who was given the largest contract in franchise history shortly after Posey took over. Of course, it would all come down to him. There was no other way.
“I love being in the middle of everything,” Adames said, smiling.
That much has been clear since the first day he put on orange and black. Adames has never been an All-Star, and yet he has a way of becoming the centerpiece of any room he walks into. The Giants signed him nearly as much for the chemistry and leadership as for the power and dependable glove, and when the rest of the league starts trying to figure out how they’re exceeding expectations, many in the room will give a big slice of the credit to Adames.
That was true even before he came up in the bottom of the 11th, but it doesn’t hurt to add highlights to your reel. With two outs, two on and the Giants trailing by a run, Adames poked a cutter into right field. Luis Matos scored easily and Tyler Fitzgerald raced home ahead of the throw, clinching a 10-9 win over the Seattle Mariners.
It was the highest-scoring opener in Oracle Park’s history, and that also felt appropriate on Friday. Before the game, the Giants celebrated the 25th anniversary of the park, bringing members of the 2000 team out to help usher in a new season.
That team won 97 games and the National League West. This group faces the daunting task of trying to stay within shouting distance of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost for the first time Friday, but at the very least, the Giants have shown through a week that they’re fully intent on surprising.
Adames said the Giants are in a “great place” when it comes to clubhouse vibes, energy and chemistry. And then there’s another intangible.
“They’re a bunch of dogs, man,” he said of his teammates. “They’re going to go out there and fight.”
Every last punch was needed Friday, because the Giants played a lot of baseball that would have led to sleepless nights had it not been for the final single, the 32nd combined hit of the game. There were missed opportunities on both sides, including the Giants’ failure to score the winning run from third with no outs in the ninth.
Adames was part of that sequence, popping up to second. He was also seemingly part of every grounder or line drive for about an hour in the middle of the marathon. Adames leapt into the air to steal a single from close friend Julio Rodriguez, who later demanded that he buy him a meal on Saturday. He smiled and exchanged playful gestures with Rodriguez, and that continued when Adames was later on second base as a runner.
The leap was followed by a series of rockets that Adames couldn’t get in front of, though. He said the hard dirt on a sunny day surprised him, but he also felt he should have made more plays.
“Man, they were trying to kill me today,” he said, laughing. “I felt like every groundball was hit to me like 155 (mph)! I was obviously trying to make the plays, unfortunately, it didn’t happen a few times. But obviously, I always want the ball hit to me.”
Adames shook the sequence off, the smile rarely leaving his face as he took in his first home game at Oracle Park. But there’s a commitment to his craft, too, and it’s no fluke that Adames is coming off a 112-RBI season. Manager Bob Melvin calls him an “RBI guy,” and with the winning run on second, Adames had his chance.
The Mariners called a mound meeting around righty Carlos Vargas, who had just struck out LaMonte Wade Jr. with a nasty cutter, right after a walk of Fitzgerald, who took an impossibly close 3-2 slider that could have gone either way.
Adames thought Vargas would throw a sinker on his hands. He told himself to make contact and give his runners a chance, and when he got a first-pitch cutter, he served it into right field. Within seconds, he was part of his first walk-off celebration in San Francisco.
It was the first opener at Oracle Park with more than 18 total runs, and it came on the heels of a trip during which the Giants mostly won with pitching and strong defense. They could have been charged with two or three errors Friday, and starter Justin Verlander was knocked out in the third inning of his own Oracle Park debut.
But a win is a win, and 6-1 is 6-1. Good teams, Verlander said, find different ways to win.
“Like I said in the spring, this team has something special,” he said. “I thought we were overlooked. It’s early, but I think you can see that this team is pretty good.”
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