Several Giants seize late-night opportunities in stirring comeback win over Padres

New York Times

2 days ago

Heliot Ramos sent a text message as soon as he heard the news.
I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate the type of person you are and the support you always gave me. It's God's plan. So keep battling.
The words were directed to LaMonte Wade Jr., whom the Giants designated for assignment after Tuesday night's stunning, 10-inning loss to the San Diego Padres. Wade had the misfortune of hitting .167 amid a lineup that was beginning to squeeze bat handles like turnips. Something had to be done before a talented pitching staff blew a gasket or before the team gave back the last remnants of their fast and frolicking April. So club president Buster Posey met face-to-face with a friend and former teammate and effectively fired him.
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'Yeah, it was a difficult decision,' Posey said. 'I think one of the trickier things for me is there's still guys on the team that I played with, so (I) had a different relationship with them as a player than I do now. I still consider LaMonte a buddy, you know. It wasn't an easy thing to do. But we've got to get some offense going.'
The Giants ended the tenure of a Willie Mac Award winner whose unexpected, late-inning heroics in 2021 stood out as a particular inspiration on a team that achieved a franchise-record 107 victories. No, the Giants did not win a World Series in that charmed season. But one could argue that the breadth of their achievement was even more difficult and just as impressive.
In clinching that National League West championship, they did what no other major league team had accomplished. They reduced a 106-win team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, to runner-up status. They needed every one of their 107 wins to capture the division. And so many of those implausible wins were hand-delivered by the unheralded son of two longtime U.S. Postal Service workers.
'Late Night LaMonte' had kicked around the Minnesota Twins system for a half decade before coming to the Giants in an agate-typeface trade and receiving his first meaningful chance in the major leagues. He responded by making a win probability graph as useless as a compass at the North Pole. Wade flipped the game script over and over in 2021 while collecting 13 hits in 23 at-bats in the ninth inning that season. He memorably splashed a home run into McCovey Cove and over the head of his mother, Emily, while she was taking a stroll on the arcade. On a team with Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt, Wade was the player you most wanted at the plate with the game on the line.
And when Wade batted in the ninth inning of the fifth game of the Giants' NL Division Series against those same Dodgers, he came within a fraction of an inch of hitting a walk-off home run that would have equaled Bobby Thomson's celebrated place in baseball lore.
If only Wade had connected with Max Scherzer's pitch just an inch or two deeper, his swing could have resulted in something so much more than a cove-splashing foul fly ball.
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If only 'Late Night LaMonte' hadn't been a fraction of a second too early.
Instead, the Giants' season ended that night on the shores of McCovey Cove. We'd later learn that Posey's playing career ended that night, too.
Everything about Posey the major leaguer was so exceptional, right down to this: the decision to walk away wasn't made for him but by him. That is not how it works for the vast majority of players. It's not how it worked for Wade on Tuesday.
Posey made that decision, too. Asked prior to Wednesday's game how he would reflect on Wade's time as a Giant, Posey said he was struck by 'watching his progression as a major-league player. I think he came up as a guy that didn't necessarily believe in his talent level, and then he grew into believing in it, and he believed that he could be that guy late in games that would get big hits, and he provided many of those for us.'
Several hours later, Ramos provided one more big hit. He batted in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and the fans on their feet and lashed a slider from San Diego Padres right-hander Jason Adam into the left field corner for a two-run double that completed the Giants' comeback from a five-run deficit. Jung Hoo Lee followed with a sacrifice fly and the Giants' tenuous advantage survived over the final six shaky outs in a 6-5 victory at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.
A team that hadn't scored more than four runs in 16 consecutive games was able to erase a 5-0 deficit. Ramos delivered the loudest message of the night, standing on second base after his tying double, looking wide-eyed into the home dugout and screaming the same three words a half-dozen times. An amateur lip reader might decipher them as 'Let's vacuum go!'
In play, run(s) 😎 pic.twitter.com/D0er2pbtDm
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 5, 2025
'I just felt we needed this for the team,' Ramos said. 'It was an emotional game. We're down 5-0 so quick, we were grinding, we have been grinding. It's a mental battle for everybody. The game (Tuesday) night, we're winning the whole way before they turned it around. It's a buildup. We've been grinding and nothing goes our way. So it was super emotional that we got to get back in the winner's column and stay in it.'
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Posey described watching Wade's growing sense of belief in 2021. Something similar might be happening with Ramos now.
'I wanted that chance,' Ramos said. 'To me, there's nothing better. When the fans get loud like that, basically you cannot hear anything. So for me, there's not a more quiet moment than that moment I was feeling today. It's me and the pitcher. Get my pitch. That's it. The fans are just there to pump me up. But I feel like my heartbeat and my mind were clear. I was locked into the moment. I'm embracing it.'
Ramos has been the Giants' best hitter this season. He is making a case for his second consecutive All-Star selection. All of this was unthinkable a little more than a year ago, when Ramos was among the first players cut in spring training and only resurfaced on the major-league roster when a wave of injuries subsumed half the Giants' position player core. When his window opened, he was ready to jump through it.
So was right-hander Sean Hjelle, who by all rights pitched his way into incumbent status when he tossed 80 2/3 reliable innings over 58 appearances last season. When he was a surprising omission from the opening day roster at the end of March, he had every reason to seethe with entitlement. Instead, he took the baseball at Triple-A Sacramento, posted a 2.97 ERA over 18 mostly multi-inning appearances, and waited for his turn. It arrived in the fifth inning Wednesday when Kyle Harrison walked off the mound with a contused left elbow after a one-hopper that deflected off him and into shallow right field for a two-run single and a 5-0 deficit.
Hjelle made certain that deficit did not grow. He needed just 28 pitches while retiring eight of the nine hitters he faced, and Matt Chapman's two-run home run in the sixth inning made the concept of a comeback seem possible.
When Hjelle finally received his precious chance, he was ready for it.
Daniel Johnson's opportunity might have felt even more precious to him. The Vallejo, Calif., native had run out of chances with major-league affiliates this offseason, so he signed with Durango of the Mexican League before the Giants offered him a minor-league contract May 5. Johnson had played in 35 games for Cleveland over 2020-21 but his only major-league action since then had been a sliver of one game in 2024 with the Baltimore Orioles, who found themselves thin in the outfield after Cedric Mullins collided with Austin Slater. Johnson hustled to Camden Yards, pinch ran in the ninth inning, played right field in the 10th and grounded out to end a home loss to the Detroit Tigers. The next day, when Mullins reported to the ballpark with minimal neck pain, Baltimore returned Johnson to Triple A.
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'I was a filler for a day,' Johnson said.
There is no guarantee that Johnson's stay with the Giants will be much longer than that. But he filled his debut Wednesday with memories while playing in the ballpark where he once stood on the seats in the upper deck so he could see over the adults who were imploring Barry Bonds to hit a home run. Johnson singled twice, scored two runs, showed no hesitation to steal a base even with the Giants down by five, and might have made the game-saving play when he combined a perfect read and route to take an extra-base hit away from Luis Arraez in the ninth inning.
No triples allowed by Daniel Johnson 🚫 pic.twitter.com/w0dPDBVyb3
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) June 5, 2025
Off the bat, Arraez's drive had an expected batting average of .520. A missed attempt by Johnson would've allowed Fernando Tatis Jr. to jog the rest of the way home from first base with the tying run. Instead, Johnson's sprinting, lunging catch behind right-hander Ryan Walker provided the Giants with an opportunity to escape the inning. Then reliever Randy Rodriguez entered and continued his near-flawless season, retiring two left-handed batters to record his first career save.
Johnson's catch represented a save of sorts, too. It was all the more impressive considering he was playing the first game of his life in one of the league's trickiest right fields.
'I made it my business to get fly balls (in batting practice) because it was my first day,' Johnson said. 'After that, you trust your instincts. Obviously, there's elements, wind, weird dimensions. But you trust your instincts and go get it.
'We were playing kind of (shallow) and I was like, 'I have to run. I have to go.' That was the only thing in my mind: get to the ball.'
Johnson's description of his urgency in right field was a near-perfect echo of Posey's pregame description of his urgency to give the roster an offensive jolt.
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'It's time to go,' Posey said. 'I think we all believe we're better than we've been with the bats the last 2 1/2 or three weeks. It's time to go.'
The Giants will go forth without a player who had been one of their most inspirational. Giants manager Bob Melvin addressed Wade's departure with hitters in a pregame meeting.
'He (Melvin) always tries to keep it very simple,' Ramos said. 'He basically said, 'I know it's a lot of moves, but we're bringing in some guys who are swinging a hot bat.' He said it plain and simple. Nobody likes to see this with LaMonte. He's a friend; he's a good player. Things weren't going his way. Hitting, it's tough. You know how baseball is.'
You know how it is. Nobody knows how it will go. On the day that the organization cut ties with 'Late Night LaMonte,' perhaps there was no more fitting tribute to him than this: the Giants were on the wrong end of a steep win probability graph. Then they rendered it useless. They made the needle spin.
(Top photo of Heliot Ramos: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)