SAN FRANCISCO — The yo-yoing for a player between the minors and the major leagues can be grueling, and a stark contrast. From bus trips to chartered flights. Postgame snacks to full-fledged buffets. Thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands.
Mac Williamson can attest to all of the above, starting with this year. From his euphoria of getting called up to the major leagues on April 15, to striking out against Clayton Kershaw in the seventh inning as a pinch-hitter, 20 minutes after arriving to the ballpark.
The transitions and transactions came full-circle for Williamson on Wednesday night. Just minutes after blasting his first major-league home run, he dropped a fly ball to start the ninth inning in a one-run game, one the Giants still hung on to win.
“The game’s humbling,” Willaimson said, “and it couldn’t have happened any quicker to me than it did tonight.”
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It was a contentious, yet riveting final 20 minutes at AT&T Park, but the Giants (36-25) made a hero of Williamson despite his misplay, and beat the Red Sox (34-25), 2-1, to win another game started by Madison Bumgarner (7-2, 1.88 ERA). Williamson’s go-ahead home run was served up by David Price (7-3, 4.63 ERA), on the first pitch he unfurled in the eighth inning.
The Red Sox ace played up to his role, allowing only three hits, and just two after the second inning. But both left the park, one landing in McCovey Cove off the bat of Brandon Belt, and the other plopping feet behind the Chevron cars in left field to give Williamson a milestone moment.
“That’s what you’re hoping for in a game like this,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “Someone gets ahold of one, and Mac did.”
The 6-foot-4 left fielder had a rough go of it against Price, striking out twice in a performance emblematic of his young career. Each time he’s surfaced on the Giants’ roster, he’s missed much more than he’s hit. And he’s not making excuses, but thinks he can recount every one of the nine pitches Kershaw threw him in his first at-bat of this season.
In his 21 games, he’s stood in against Sonny Gray and flailed. In his last start on Mother’s Day, it was the Eddie Butler who threw dominantly and left Williamson with a sour taste in his mouth. His most recent at-bat was a pinch-hit appearance against Craig Kimbrel.
Major-league success hasn’t been handed to Williamson on a silver platter, and he admitted he tried too hard to show that he belonged at the highest level. Against those kinds of pitchers, you won’t stumble into success.
But finally, facing yet another top-tier arm, Williamson had his triumphant moment.
“To be able to help my team win,” Williamson said, “and not just get my first home run, but to have that be a meaningful home run is just really special.”
He almost spoiled it. Hanley Ramirez sliced a ball into left-center field that Williamson thought he had a beat on. He recalled Belt’s first-inning flyout that blew from straightaway right field and landed in the heart of Triples Alley. He reacted accordingly, and called off Denard Span as he anticipated the ball to come back toward him in left.
When it didn’t, the ball clanked off the heel of his glove and supplanted Ramirez at second base with no outs. From that point, Bochy could only entrust his bullpen to pull off the rescue mission. He mixed and matched Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez and Hunter Strickland to navigate the heart of Boston’s order, and keep a goat off Williamson’s back.
“That was a big (game) for him,” Bumgarner said of Williamson. “He’s been putting a lot of pressure on himself trying to do well.
“He’s got some of the best tools in the game. If he puts it together he’s going to be a really good player.”
Williamson would like to think as much, and playing time might come in abundance with Hunter Pence out until August. For now, he’s happy Price left a cutter over the heart of the plate.
It’s the same pitch Williamson twice missed earlier in the game. He’ll remember the ones he missed, and especially the last one he parked over the wall. What stark contrast the results proved to be.
Videos courtesy of MLB.com
