Lee excites in return to game action: 'Can't wait to watch him have a full season'

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- After waiting nine months to return to game action for the Giants, Jung Hoo Lee knew he wasn’t going to hold back in Saturday afternoon’s Cactus League opener at Surprise Stadium.

“Coming over to the field today, I was thinking in my head, ‘Today, first pitch, I’m going for the swing,’” Lee said via interpreter Justin Han.

When he stepped up to the plate to face right-hander Tyler Mahle in the first inning, Lee stuck with his game plan, lining a first-pitch fastball to right field to collect the first hit in the Giants’ 6-1 win over the Rangers.

Lee looked comfortable on both sides of the ball in his first game action since suffering a season-ending left shoulder injury last May, as he also raced into the left-center-field gap to snag a line drive off the bat of Evan Carter in the bottom of the first.

The play elicited some uncomfortable flashbacks to when Lee tore his labrum on a collision with the center-field fence at Oracle Park last year, but the 26-year-old center fielder managed to track down the ball at the warning track and pull up before hitting the wall on Saturday.

“I almost was like saying, ‘Slow down, slow down,’ because I certainly didn’t want to see him come up against the wall,” manager Bob Melvin said. “But he doesn’t have that in him. He was going to go get it. It was a nice play that he made look easy.”

“I knew he had it the whole time,” said right-hander Landen Roupp, who struck out three over two scoreless innings in his Cactus League debut. “That ball was smoked, and I knew he had it the entire way. He’s just an elite defender, and you saw him hit. He’s just the full package, and I can’t wait to watch him have a full season.”

Given his extended layoff, Lee is still working on adapting to Major League competition this spring, as he appeared in only 37 games for the Giants before injuring his shoulder last year.

“I can’t say at the moment I’m 100 percent confident playing offense, defense right now, but I’m putting a lot of effort on trying to just be focused on what I’m doing right now on the field, trying to help the team out,” Lee said. “I feel like I need to spend a lot of time in the cage and also on the field. That’s going to help out a lot.”

Lee batted .262 with a .641 OPS and two home runs over 158 plate appearances as a rookie last season, but the Giants believe he has the potential to develop into a key bat for them moving forward. Lee primarily batted leadoff for the club after signing a six-year, $113 million contract in December 2023, but Melvin has said the former KBO star could slide into the three-hole and see more time in the heart of San Francisco’s order in 2025.

“I think it’s pretty clear that we believe in him as a difference-maker,” said fellow outfielder Mike Yastrzemski. “He can really hit, he can really run, he’s smart, he understands the game, he studies it well. I think he’s very consistent in his mindset. It seems like it stays the same constantly. He showed a little bit of what he could do last year, but I don’t even think he really got hot, so it will be fun to see him really feel comfortable and settled.”

Huff revenge game
The first game of the spring was an “emotional” one for catcher Sam Huff, who got a chance to face off against his former club on Saturday. Once a top Rangers prospect, Huff spent four seasons in Texas before he was claimed off waivers by San Francisco last month. He went on to enjoy an eventful day at his old stomping grounds.

Huff became the first Giant to issue an Automated Ball-Strike System challenge this spring, successfully overturning a call against Rangers first baseman Jake Burger in the bottom of the first inning. Huff initiated a review after a first-pitch sinker from Roupp was called a ball and flipped the 1-0 count to 0-1 after the Hawk-Eye view showed that the pitch clipped the bottom of the strike zone.

Huff continued to impress in his first at-bat of the afternoon, hammering a hanging slider from Mahle a Statcast-projected 422 feet out to the center-field berm in the second inning to give the Giants their first home run of the spring.

“That was pretty sick, especially against the Rangers,” Roupp said. “I think he was pretty hyped by that one.”