SAN FRANCISCO -- The left side of the infield is heating up for the Giants.
After third baseman Matt Chapman homered in back-to-back games for the first time this season, Willy Adames put on his own power display in Sunday afternoon’s 9-3 win over the Rockies at Oracle Park.
The Giants’ new shortstop launched a pair of solo shots in his first two at-bats against right-hander Germán Márquez, marking the first time he’s gone deep at home this year.
“It felt great,” Adames said. “Obviously, we got the win. That’s the most important thing. But it definitely felt great just to get it out of the way. It feels like it was overdue.”
Adames opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, winning a 10-pitch at-bat with Márquez by hammering a 3-2 fastball out to left field for his third home run of the year.
The 29-year-old slugger then pounced on a 2-0 hanging slider in his next at-bat in the third, sending it 398 feet out to left to record his eighth career multihomer game and hand an early 2-0 lead to San Francisco starter Logan Webb.
“It’s just really calm at-bats now,” manager Bob Melvin said. “The bat is really getting through the zone. When he tends to get going, he gets going pretty hot. Every game now, it just seems like his at-bats are getting better. A couple of home runs today -- it feels like he’s off to the races now.”
“Everyone knew he was going to do that,” said Webb, who earned the win after firing seven innings of one-run ball. “Willy is one of the best players, I think, in baseball. To see him break out like that … it was exciting for him and for us.”
Adames just missed clearing the fences for the third time when he stepped in to face Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli in the fifth, crushing a 402-foot drive that hit off the right-center-field wall and fell for an RBI double. He finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs to lead a 13-hit parade for the Giants, who took three of four from the lowly Rockies to improve to 22-13 on the season.
According to Statcast, the ball was blown in four feet and pushed three feet to the right by the wind, preventing Adames from joining Kevin Elster (April 11, 2000), Pablo Sandoval (Oct. 24, 2012) and Joc Pederson (May 24, 2022) as the only players to produce three-homer games at Oracle Park.
“I feel like it was more like a line drive,” Adames said. “I thought it was going to be like a sacrifice. But I’ll take the double. I think it was cooler.”
The shortstop batted only .185 over his first 20 games after signing a franchise-record seven-year, $182 million contract with the Giants in December, but he’s started to pick it up in recent weeks. He’s notched hits in 11 of his last 15 games, batting .296 (16-for-54) with three homers and 10 RBIs over that span.
“I’ve been feeling better at the plate,” Adames said. “I feel like the work that we’ve been putting in the cages and outside in the early work is paying off. It was more just building that confidence and just going out there and believing in myself and believing in the approach. Just trying to not overdo it. I think it’s been better the last few weeks. Hopefully we can continue to build from that.”
Adames has historically been a slow starter -- his .678 career OPS in March and April is his lowest of any month during the regular season and nearly 200 points lower than his high mark of .853 in August -- so he knew it was only a matter of time before his swing started to come around.
“It’s May,” Adames said, smiling. “I think that’s the only difference. I was talking to my best friend, and he was telling me, ‘Hey, why do you have to do it like that? Why do you have to suck in April?’ And I was like, ‘You think I’m trying to suck?’ I’m trying to be good, but it still doesn’t happen.’”
The Giants hope to continue to ride the momentum from their three-game winning streak into Chicago, where they'll go up against the National League Central-leading Cubs (21-14) in a three-game series that begins on Monday night at Wrigley Field.
“We know they’re playing really good baseball,” Adames said. “Obviously, they have a really good team. I feel like we play good when we’re playing against better teams. I feel like we focus more. I feel like we lock it in even more.
“I think that’s the mentality right now just going to Chicago. Just continue to play good baseball and see what happens.”