Gabe Kapler and Mike Yastrzemski discuss the outfielder’s huge performance in the Giants 7-6 win over the Padres. Yastrzemski hit a walk-off in the victory and another solo homer earlier in the game.
The Giants media guide lists every Splash Hit in the two-decade history of Oracle Park, and it's very specific about what the rules are. Above the list of 130 home runs the organization has counted as Splash Hits is a sentence that makes it clear they "have been hit over the right field wall and landed in McCovey Cove on the fly."
Thus, Mike Yastrzemski lost his first career Splash Hit on a technicality. Yastrzemski blasted a Chris Paddock changeup 379 feet in the third inning, but before it hit water, it glanced off a pillar designed to shoot water into the air after home runs. The ticker on the right field wall didn't move.
Six innings later, Yastrzemski made sure there was no doubt.
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The second-year outfielder hit a majestic shot that plopped down about 10 feet into the cove, giving the Giants a 7-6 win over the Padres on a night when they trailed by three runs heading into the eighth.
Donovan Solano tied it with one swing, and a few minutes later Yastrzemski continued to build his case as the club's best player. It wasn't just that he hit two homers. It was how he did it. Yastrzemski took one of the game's best right-handers deep and then later homered off tough lefty Matt Strahm. In a lineup built for platoons, there's little doubt he's locked in as an everyday player.
"I think tonight was an important moment in Yaz's career," manager Gabe Kapler said. "He hit a changeup off of Paddock, which was really encouraging for the hitting people, who like to see the bat stay on plane and extend out through the zone and get that ball in the air to the pull side. That was a really impressive swing.
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"And then obviously to hang in there against a tough lefty late in the game, also get that ball up in the air to the pull side which is a real skill -- he just looks like a great all-around player right now. It's starting to seem like this is who Yaz is."
This version of Yaz is one of the better all-around players in the National League right now. He's batting .409 through the first week of the season with a .500 on-base percentage. The Giants are using Yastrzemski in center field regularly, and he appears to be Kapler's best bet as a permanent leadoff hitter.
"In order to be successful in this game, you have to think you're the best player on the field," Yastrzemski said. "If you want to play against the best, you want that challenge. And to be in the situation of being in the big leagues right now and the path that I've taken, I'm super grateful every day. I try to take a balance of gratefulness and a balance of confidence and try to blend those things into enjoying every moment that you get and every opportunity."
Yastrzemski's second homer was the fourth of the night for the Giants, who might all of a sudden be playing in a bit of a hitter's park. The ball took off in two exhibition games against the A's and Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wil Myers hit homers Tuesday. The four-homer game was just the fourth at Oracle Park by the Giants in the last decade.
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Yastrzemski started it off and Alex Dickerson added a blast to dead center. Solano's homer set up the ninth-inning drama.
"He's one of the best hitters I've ever seen," Yastrzemski said of Solano. "He doesn't get the nickname Donnie Barrels for nothing."
The Giants have dropped that nickname on Solano because of his tendency to hit everything on the sweet spot. It was given to him at some point last year and stuck, unlike the moniker Yastrzemski rolls with.
Yastrzemski has simply always gone by Yaz, just like his grandfather, but he could roll with the "Barrels" nickname if he wanted to. Right now he's squaring everything up, and at long last, that led to a moment every left-handed hitter who walks into Oracle Park dreams of.
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Yastrzemski said he was well aware of the fact that he didn't have a Splash Hit on his résumé. As the right fielder most of last year, he stared up at the ticker every night.
"It's one of those things where that's like a dream thing to say, that you hit a ball into McCovey Cove," he said. "To actually do it was super surreal and super fun."