On Saturday afternoon, the San Francisco Giants were a season-high 27 games under .500, and fresh off of a discouraging 2-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It was one of many defeats the Giants have suffered this season in which the result was secondary to another demoralizing outcome. On Friday night, Giants first baseman Brandon Belt was hit in the helmet by an Anthony Banda curveball and immediately dropped to the ground.
Belt was helped off the field by Giants trainer Dave Groeschner and manager Bruce Bochy, and after the game, concern regarding Belt’s health –he’s dealt with multiple head injuries in his professional career– took precedence over concern regarding the Giants’ record.
The atmosphere in San Francisco’s clubhouse was understandably quiet and somber, as it typically is after losses.
That tone has become increasingly common this season, as the Giants have struggled to a 46-70 record, while a number of the franchise’s most valued assets have spent a considerable amount of time on the disabled list. As a result, San Francisco’s clubhouse hasn’t sported the most upbeat ambiance, especially over the last two months.
On Saturday, though, there was a decidedly different aura emanating from the center of the room, and one player’s presence was responsible for it.
Three hours ahead of the Giants’ Saturday evening matchup with the Diamondbacks, relief pitcher Albert Suarez, outfielder Gorkys Hernandez and outfielder Jarrett Parker were gathered around their lockers, busting up in laughter and bouncing stories off the centerpiece of the conversation. That centerpiece, of course, was Pablo Sandoval.
Sandoval’s contract was purchased from AAA Sacramento on Saturday morning when the Giants placed Belt on the seven-day concussion disabled list. Even though the 31-year-old infielder hit just .212 in 32 games for the Boston Red Sox during the first half of the year, and even though Sandoval had recorded just six hits in 29 at-bats since joining the River Cats, San Francisco had a demonstrated need for a corner infielder. Plus, as Bochy revealed, the Giants needed more than just Sandoval’s bat.
“I think it was time to call up Pablo,” Bochy said. “Initially we were thinking a few more at-bats but sometimes your hand is forced a little bit because of an injury and that’s what happened. We need a little presence here. A guy I hope can help spark us as I mentioned earlier, create some energy and Pablo has always done that. He has a lot of fun playing, he has a lot of passion for this game and he brings a lot of life to the dugout and this club could use a little shot in the arm.”
The Giants called a sleeping Sandoval at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, and woke him up in his hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska. Immediately, Sandoval burst into tears as memories of playing in San Francisco came flooding back. He called his fiance, Yuli, and by the middle of the day, Sandoval was donning orange and black in the middle of the Giants’ clubhouse.
Despite having a locker on the far side of the clubhouse, behind a pillar that separated him from plain sight, Sandoval refused to stay put. With just a handful of teammates in the room, he pulled up a chair, and began bouncing back and forth between English and Spanish as his tales lit up the faces of players who haven’t had much to smile about this year.
By the time Sandoval was ready to entertain the high volume of media members assigned to cover his first day back with the Giants, Bochy had penciled him into the cleanup spot in the lineup. Sandoval had yet to see a copy of the Giants’ lineup card, but as he expressed, it didn’t matter where he was hitting, he was grateful to have a place on a Major League roster.
In the bottom half of the seventh inning on Saturday, Sandoval was 0-for-2 and had already committed a throwing error that led to an unearned run. Red Sox fans who watched Sandoval’s demise unfold over the course of three seasons in front of their eyes couldn’t have been surprised. This is the player Sandoval has become.
Except in a seventh-inning at-bat, it wasn’t. With San Francisco trailing 4-0, Sandoval launched a leadoff double to left center field that sparked a three-run rally. Parker doubled Sandoval home, and eventually, dribbled a walkoff single in the 10th inning to lift the Giants to a 5-4 win, their largest comeback victory of the season. After the game, Parker spoke with four reporters, while Sandoval met with nearly two dozen.
“He’s always got (energy), I’m sure he’s over there talking up a storm so he’s always got energy,” Parker said, while pointing at Sandoval’s media circus. “You know, it’s great to be around. He’s always upbeat, he’s always ready to go and always ready to compete so it’s cool.”
On July 14, Sandoval was designated for assignment by the Red Sox, who were willing to eat the remaining $47 million-plus on his contract and usher him out of town. Even though he signed a five-year, $95 million contract after winning the 2014 World Series in San Francisco, Boston’s patience grew thin with an under-performing, overpaid star, and eventually the Red Sox confidence in Sandoval, and Sandoval’s confidence in himself, disintegrated.
At the time Sandoval was let go by the Red Sox, it was nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which he would rejoin the Giants. On his way out of town, Sandoval severed connections with Giants’ brass, enraged the team’s fan base, and burned his fair share of bridges. For a player who might one day need a path back into the city, he failed to remember that San Francisco is a peninsula, so those bridges might have helped his access.
A franchise often willing to forgive and forget, the Giants snuck Sandoval in the back door, signing him to a Minor League contract eight days after Boston renounced him. Even after he spent two weeks in the Minor Leagues, and after publicly apologizing for his previous actions, Sandoval was still greeted with a smattering of boos behind the cheers that accompanied his first introduction on Saturday evening.
Though some fans and many media members –myself included– were skeptical of how Sandoval could heal an ailing Giants’ club, he insisted that everything happens for a reason.
“I learned a lot of things, I matured a little bit more,” Sandoval said after his call-up. “They say everything happens for a reason, so the good thing is I’ve got my family. I’m happy, I’m a happy guy. I’ve matured. I’ve learned a lot of things in baseball so I’m a different guy than I was there. I was younger. Now it’s way different. There’s a lot of things to compare that I was, if I had the mind that I had right now, it’s way different.”
Through the first week of his second stint in San Francisco, Sandoval’s actions match his words.
Four hours before game time, Sandoval can be found taking grounders at third base, tweaking his swing in the batting cages, or offering tips to teammates who appear eager to listen and learn. Sandoval’s rise and fall is well documented, and he knows that to rise again, it will take hard work.
“I’ve been working on that with (Jose) Aguacil and Ron Wotus everyday to get my first at-bats, one of the things that I’m looking forward, and I’m just going to continue to work,” Sandoval said.
Though he knows it’s imperative if he wants a future in the game, Sandoval’s mission to rehabilitate himself isn’t his only objective. It’s not every day a team can find a valued clubhouse presence from the AAA ranks, but that’s exactly what Bochy wanted the Venezuelan native to become. And if you ask 23-year-old prospect Ryder Jones, Sandoval’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.
Since Sandoval’s return to the 25-man roster, the Giants are 4-1, with their lone loss coming on Monday evening against the Chicago Cubs. In that game, Jones snapped a brutal 0-for-13 stretch at the plate with a pair of hits, including his first Major League home run. Though Jones shredded Pacific Coast League pitching with the River Cats this season, he had yet to break out of an extended slump that clouded his first days at the highest level. Jones knew he was pressing at the plate, and he just needed someone who had seen him have success at the plate to help him break out of a funk. Enter Sandoval.
“He (Sandoval) played with me in Sacramento when I was swinging it hot,” Jones said. “He knows that I can swing it and he can tell that maybe I’m putting a little too much pressure on myself so he tried to calm me down yesterday and I took the words and I tried to bring it into tonight and calm down and I took some good swings.”
After a 1-for-4 performance on Monday, Sandoval was out of the starting lineup on Tuesday as the Giants faced Cubs left-hander Jose Quintana. Though Sandoval was a competent switch hitter during his first stretch with the Giants, his at-bats from the right side of the plate are no longer as smooth. With that in mind, Bochy wants to keep hotter right-handed hitters like Nick Hundley and Kelby Tomlinson in against southpaws, but he still has Sandoval available on the bench.
The energy Sandoval has brought to the club has carried over into the crowd at AT&T Park, which much like the team, hasn’t had much to celebrate this season. On Tuesday night, Sandoval delivered a pinch hit single, and the Giants wound up winning again.
“So when he (Sandoval) comes up and gets a big hit, plus in that situation tonight it did give us another run,” Bochy said. “Energy, you talk about it. When you don’t hit, you look flat. Where’s the energy? When you get a hit, a hit like that and now it’s first and third and nobody out, that does a lot for the dugout, a lot for the fans, everybody and that’s just baseball. If you’re not getting men on base, and getting a hit, you’re asking where all of that energy is.”
After the Giants won three of their first four with Sandoval back on the club, they turned the rotation over to Madison Bumgarner on Wednesday afternoon. During a near-three month stint on the disabled list earlier this season, Bumgarner lost his ability to impact the club with an arm that has carried San Francisco through its best days as a franchise.
In Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, it was Bumgarner’s five-inning save against the Kansas City Royals that would become one of the most indelible moments in postseason history. When the Giants ace recorded the final out of that World Series, it was Sandoval who caught the popout that clinched the team’s third title in five seasons.
On Wednesday, Sandoval again provided Bumgarner with help from his glove, as a two-out diving stop in the top of the fifth inning robbed Cubs leadoff man Ben Zobrist of a base hit. Then in the eighth inning, with Hunter Strickland on the mound, Sandoval charged in from the hot corner to field a slow roller and make a snap throw to first to end the frame and preserve the Giants’ 2-1 lead.
After the game, while the rest of his teammates hit the showers in preparation for the Giants’ flight to Washington, D.C., Sandoval hung around after speaking with the media and waited for Bumgarner to get dressed. Before Bumgarner had a chance to speak with reporters, Sandoval approached him off to the side, in Bumgarner’s corner of the clubhouse. The Giants’ third baseman shook Bumgarner’s hand, and told him what a great performance he strung together to help the Giants clinch a series against the National League Central leading Cubs.
It wasn’t a moment that TV cameras were going to catch, and it didn’t lack sincerity. Sandoval was appreciative of Bumgarner, and Bumgarner was appreciative of him.
“He (Sandoval) was a lot of fun and he was obviously a great player when he was here and I’m certainly happy to have him back,” Bumgarner said.
In the ninth inning of the Giants’ Wednesday win, outfielder Hunter Pence hit a solo home run to give the Giants an extra insurance run. Pence, who was close with Sandoval when he first joined the Giants, now has his locker stationed next to the Giants’ newest position player. He admitted it’s a bit of deja vu.
“It’s been awesome,” Pence said of having Sandoval back. “He’s come back and just really been a light. He has a lot of energy, a lot of smiles, a lot of laughs. He first told me, ‘man I really miss this place and I’m so happy to be back.’ It shows. It’s a lot of fun having him back. It’s cool seeing the Panda hats in the seats again. His playful spirit and the city are kind of cohesive, they work together well.”
The sample size is small. Even in his worst days as a member of the Red Sox, there was surely a time when Sandoval recorded four hits in 12 at-bats, as he’s done in his first 12 plate appearances back with the Giants. Even when Sandoval was struggling, the Red Sox probably won four out of five at some point. That much is likely.
But this feels different. And according to Bochy, it is different.
“He’s playing well, isn’t he?” Bochy said. “He did make a nice play there at third and got a nice hit the first time up. He looks close to being the Pablo that we saw earlier. I know it’s a small sample size here, but he’s getting some good swings off, he’s doing a fine job at third base. Throwing well. So I think he’s brought some energy to the club, I do. The clubhouse, the dugout, he just loves playing and he hasn’t changed a bit in that way.”
As the Giants were preparing to board a bus for the airport on Wednesday afternoon, 28-year-old outfielder Carlos Moncrief walked back into the clubhouse to begin packing his bag. Moncrief spent 10 seasons in the Minor Leagues before receiving his first Major League call-up two weeks ago. Moncrief hasn’t accrued the apparel and gear his other teammates have yet, and Sandoval took note.
Before Moncrief zipped up his duffel bag, Sandoval tossed him a pair of brand new cleats. Moncrief told Sandoval he’d already ordered a pair. Sandoval said it didn’t matter. Keep them.
It was a small gesture, but it’s the type of self-aware deed Sandoval wants to become known for.
When he was first rising through the Giants’ system, he said Bengie Molina and Omar Vizquel taught him how to play the game the right way, how to respect the game, and how to lead younger players. Giants management and Sandoval himself know that at some point, Sandoval veered off course. Now, he’s insistent that he’s matured, and he’s doing everything in his power to validate the franchise’s decision to bring him back.
While Pence loves seeing Panda hats in the stands again, Sandoval said he enjoys heading out for his morning coffee and interacting with Giants fans in line at the shop. It’s a sign that the greater community matters to Sandoval, who said it will always feel like home here.
Another sign he’s invested in more than just baseball? Sandoval decided to donate his San Francisco salary from the 2017 season to the Giants’ community fund. It’s a prorated amount of the Major League minimum that adds up to roughly $170,000. Of course, there will always be people who will point to the $47 million-plus Sandoval will collect from the Red Sox from now through the end of the 2019 season and say he could be doing more. That’s a reality.
But in his first week back with the Giants, Sandoval has done enough. He’s back, he’s invested, he’s playing well, and most importantly, his team is winning baseball games. Sandoval is happy, and for the first time in a long time, so are the Giants.
“It’s not me, it’s about 25 guys on the roster,” Sandoval said. “All of the guys here have great talent and being in the big leagues is fun and just knowing you need to have talent, but you need to have somebody next to you to give you that advice, to be everyday happy. No matter what situation you are in, you just have to go up there and fight every at-bat. It’s just one of those things that I look forward to when I get here and start to work with the guys. I don’t know, I don’t take credit.”