PHILADELPHIA -- One of the more impressive parts of the Giants’ hot start is that they’ve managed to win games even with an offense that hasn’t been firing on all cylinders.
Jung Hoo Lee, Mike Yastrzemski and Wilmer Flores have been carrying the lineup thus far, but the Giants know they’ll need the rest of their bats to get going in order to sustain their success moving forward.
Two of those slumping hitters took a step toward breaking out of their early skids on Monday night. Tyler Fitzgerald and Willy Adames both launched their first home run of the season to help fuel a six-run second inning that allowed the Giants to overcome an early three-run deficit and rally for a 10-4 series-opening win over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
Fitzgerald went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and finished a single shy of the cycle, while Yastrzemski also went deep and knocked in three more runs to help San Francisco improve to 12-4 on the season, the second-best winning percentage in the Majors behind the division-rival Padres. The trio of homers picked up right-hander Landen Roupp, who earned his first win of the season after giving up four runs on six hits and three walks over five innings.
“We’ve just been resilient,” Adames said. “We don’t give up. I think that’s the mentality we have right now. We feel like we can come back from any deficit. That’s a great mentality to have. That puts a lot of confidence on the pitchers and obviously the whole team.”
The Giants found themselves in an early hole after Roupp surrendered three runs in a rocky bottom of the first, but their bats quickly answered back against Phillies right-hander Taijuan Walker in the top of the second.
Heliot Ramos doubled and LaMonte Wade Jr. walked to put a pair of runners on for Flores, who put San Francisco on the board with an RBI single to center field. Walker then fielded a slow chopper off the bat of Patrick Bailey, but he made an errant throw to second base that bounced into center field, allowing Wade to score from second.
Fitzgerald followed with the biggest blow, hammering an elevated cutter over the left-field fence for a three-run shot that put the Giants ahead, 5-3.
“We have a super balanced lineup, so it’s about time that the bottom of the lineup kind of stepped up for the top of the lineup,” said Fitzgerald, who entered Monday batting .237 with a .582 OPS over his first 12 games of the season. “I’m just happy to participate in the runs. We have some guys carrying us this season like Flo and Jung Hoo. It’s important for some other guys to step up every now and then, and that’s what I was able to do tonight.”
Adames, who hit .186 with a .506 OPS over his first 15 games after signing a franchise-record $182 million contract over the offseason, joined the party two batters later, crushing a middle-middle sinker out to right-center field to cap the six-run outburst and collect his first home run as a Giant. The opposite-field shot was Adames’ first homer in 135 regular-season and postseason plate appearances going back to last season, snapping the longest home run drought of his career.
“I was kind of worried. I thought I lost my power,” Adames joked. “I was like, ‘Man, I can’t hit a homer anymore. I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t even get a hit.’ But it obviously feels great to have that first one of the way and now just go out there and have fun.”
Fitzgerald also tripled and scored on Yastrzemski’s towering two-run blast to right field off Phillies left-hander Tanner Banks in the seventh inning. The 387-foot shot was Yastrzemski’s third home run of the season and his first off a lefty since his walk-off homer against the Padres’ Ray Kerr on June 19, 2023.
The Giants’ willingness to stick with a young player like Fitzgerald and give Yastrzemski a chance to face lefties is a clear sign of the longer leash the club is expected to extend players under new president of baseball operations Buster Posey. That approach is a departure from the previous regime, which tended to be more reactive when things weren’t going according to plan.
Fitzgerald admitted that he hasn’t felt super comfortable at the plate this year, but he’s been working on trying to get on top of the ball and get out of some bad habits that he developed after he suffered a back injury that sidelined him for the early part of Spring Training. The Giants could have easily pulled the plug on him at second base and awarded more playing time to someone like Casey Schmitt, but they continued to show faith in Fitzgerald, which gave him the peace of mind to work through his struggles.
“Everybody’s kind of had my back,” Fitzgerald said. “Maybe if this happened last year, kind of a slow start and a slow Spring Training, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. Just a lot of props to my teammates and my coaches for hanging in there with me. Tonight felt really good.”