The Giants’ youth movement is in full swing.
After an electric, surprising 2021, the Giants fell off into mediocrity in 2022. The fall off was made worse by the fact that no progress seemed to be made.
There was a litany of random waiver wire additions that didn’t seem to lead the Giants in any long-term direction.
But with the injection of Patrick Bailey, Casey Schmitt, Blake Sabol, Luis Matos and potentially others, the Giants have some juice, and following their first sweep of the season in St. Louis, they’re competitive at 36-32.
Shawn Estes joined Murph and Mac on Thursday morning to discuss the team’s resurgence and said it reminded him of the start of the dynasty.
“I think everybody goes back to 15 years ago when they had the infusion of the youth movement for the Giants,” Estes said. “And we saw what happened with that. We saw three World Series championships and players that you went to the ballpark to watch, right? So you’re kind of thinking well, maybe this is going to be the second coming of that. And then you start to think about championships again, right? I think more than anything, people are just excited about, excited about coming to the ballpark and seeing what these kids have to offer.”
That injection of youth, Estes said, is infectious.
It’s simultaneously intangible and tangible.
“They just have fun playing baseball and guys feed off of that,” Estes said. “Baseball can be kind of a grind as you get older in the game, get more grizzled, you start to take it too serious. You come to the ballpark every day and it becomes work…. But then all of a sudden you get kids who are happy to be here, having fun, and it rubs off on the team. And you can tell, there’s more smiles.”
San Francisco is riding a four-game win streak as it heads into Chavez Ravine for a three-game split against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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