The Giants needed a win.
With a series split and the club’s first back-to-back victories at stake, the Giants entrusted Camilo Doval with a one-run lead.
A night before, the closer sensation stamped the Giants’ most complete performance of the season in a 7-4 win. Then, on Sunday Night Baseball, the bullpen doors in center field swung open to reintroduce Doval to the Mets and a national audience.
Oracle Park’s water cannons sprayed. The brass notes to “Bailar,” by Mexican-American DJ Deorro, began.
Vamo’ a bailar, the speakers blasted as Doval reached the infield dirt.
In a sport that increasingly features histrionics for closers, Doval has upped his game. It’s still no Timmy Trumpet like Edwin Díaz, but Doval has a new walk-out song that is becoming a signature this season. If he continues pitching the way he has, the song is poised to become a hit on Third and King.
Even if he might not listen to it in another setting.
“It’s not my style of music,” Doval said, with team director of hispanic communications and marketing Erwin Higueros interpreting. “But it’s something I understand the fans love — upbeat music. That’s why I chose it.”
Asked specifically if he even likes “Bailar,” Doval affirmed. But he’s more indifferent than enthusiastic.
The 25-year-old Doval grew up in a rural Dominican Republic called Yamasa. An avid horseback rider, Doval prefers the genre of music called norteño — essentially Mexican country music, with slower ballads and thoughtful lyrics.
He’d never listen to “Bailar” while riding a horse. But he knows it gets the crowd going.
“All I want is for him to be happy,” Doval’s locker neighbor John Brebbia said. “And if that makes him happy, then that makes me happy.”
“I mean, I was dancing to it yesterday,” catcher Blake Sabol said.
It’s not the first time Doval has reached for a song outside his personal genre preference. Last year, he entered at first to “Curazao” by Dominican rapper El Alfa. In July, he discarded that for a remix to the classic song “Tequila.”
The “Tequila” remix was initially proposed by senior director of team operations Abe Silvestri, according to NBC Sports Bay Area. Around that time, Doval approached the Giants about possibly shooting off the water cannons on the beat drops.
Doval is a showman. For many of the game’s best closers, that’s becoming part of the job description.
“I think it’s appropriate in today’s game to have some theatrics when the closer comes into the game,” manager Gabe Kapler, himself a walk-up song aficionado, said.
Some players pick songs that hype them up or get them in the zone. Others don’t connect with music like that. Some walk-up songs stick with a player forever; others, like Brandon Crawford, might use several in a given season.
Closers in particular have a knack for iconic entrance songs. Mariano Rivera famously walked on to “Enter Sandman.” Jonathan Papelbon ingratiated himself to Red Sox fans by choosing “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” in Fenway Park.
Doval would rather indulge the Giants fans at Oracle Park than play them his ranchera music.
“I get the people-pleasing,” Brebbia said. “That makes sense. The point of us being here is not to be here, it’s to more or less provide entertainment. So if it entertains 30,000 people, 40,000 people, great. And if he has to not like it to do that, then that’s up to him, that’s funny.”
It makes sense that Doval isn’t particular about his music choice. His presence is more cool and laid-back. On the mound and otherwise, it often seems like Doval can’t be bothered. Part of that — having a slow heartbeat and avoiding getting rattled — has allowed him to post a 2.69 ERA with a double-digit strikeout per nine rate. A 102 mph cutter and 99 mph sinker helps, too.
“The one thing we were talking about in the dugout was just his run out to the mound, his tempo on the mound — it just always seems like he’s so in control, in his own world in a way,” Sabol said. “I think (the song’s) cool. I think the more success he has, obviously when that music starts coming on, they’ll be like ‘Oh, no, not this guy.’”
The Oracle Park crowd used to erupt for closers Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo when “Jump Around” and “El Mechón.” Doval, who broke out in 2021 and earned 27 saves last year, is trying to join them in franchise lore.
And now, with the proliferation of technology, closer entrances are getting more and more elaborate. Astros fans hold up flashlights when Ryan Pressly walks out. Liam Hendriks gets a full-on LED-lights show. Busch Stadium turns blood red for Ryan Helsley and “Hell’s Bells.” And of course, Díaz’s “Narco” became legendary during his All-Star campaign last year.
The Giants don’t have those bells and whistles — at least not yet. Kapler said he heard something might be in progress in terms of getting an LED lights system (but nothing is for certain). He and others within the clubhouse have caped for louder speakers and have commented when hearing other parks on the road shake with bass.
If and when improvements come, Doval is open to more intricacies.
“Whatever they want,” Doval said.