Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
The start to this weird season has not gone poorly for Darin Ruf. It also has not reflected the 34-year-old phenom that slugged his way onto the roster in February and March.
After three seasons in South Korea, the former Phillies slugger returned stateside and, under the tutelage of the new hitting minds and with technology he couldn’t utilize in the KBO, he destroyed pitches. In 32 Cactus League plate appearances, the slashline was .429/.469/1.000, which included three home runs.
He then returned to his home in Nebraska for the pause between camps, the timing terrible for a hitter and great for a dad whose wife gave birth.
Since returning from the COVID break, he said he still hasn’t rediscovered his stroke.
“It was hard to step away for three and half months and not really have instruction and be able to go through my routine that I had developed there. So what I thought I might have been doing over the three and a half months — I thought it might have been the same, but you never know,” said Ruf, who was able to train in a local gym and at his high school alma mater. “And then you get back and you see video and it’s like, ‘Wow, I’m doing something completely different.’”
Others would put in a lot of work to have Ruf’s B swing. Playing regularly against lefties, the first baseman/left fielder/DH is slashing .265/.375/.382 in 40 plate appearances, including his first major league home run since Oct. 1, 2016, when his three-run shot gave the Giants a lead they would give away Saturday.
The dinger came off Oakland’s Burch Smith in the seventh, Ruf calling it an “awesome feeling” not just for the normal reasons, but because he wasn’t sure if he would even have the chance against the righty in the first place.
“The way [Gabe Kapler] makes moves and things like that, I didn’t actually know if I would get that at-bat. It felt great to know that he had the confidence in me,” Ruf said this week over Zoom.
The minute sample size helps give Kapler reason to want to see more: Ruf is 5-for-12 with a .500 OBP and that homer and six RBIs against righties this year, while the slashline falls to .182/.308/.182 against southpaws. Kapler pointed to Austin Slater as a comparison, a player who happened to get a couple at-bats against righties late in games, which motivated the Giants to start him more against like-handed pitching.
Ruf wouldn’t call it a goal to crack into everyday territory and admitted how, in a 60-game season, it is difficult to make a convincing case with so few opportunities.
“The balls I’ve put in play against righties have found holes and against lefties haven’t,” Ruf said. “So I think, obviously, with the way the game has trended toward statistics, sample sizes, things like that, it’s going to be really hard this year to get a good grasp of trends. … But I think I’m just trying to have good at-bats and positive results every single time I step in the box.”
He’ll be batting seventh in Wednesday’s Oracle Park matchup with the Angels’ Patrick Sandoval, his first start since his big day Saturday, after which a stream of righties followed.
He’ll be trying to find the stroke he found in March, still “trying to get back that feeling.”
“Your body changes a little bit and so you might not have the exact range of motion I had back five months ago,” Ruf said. “Those are things that you have to find ways around.”
The Red Sox claimed righty pitcher Andrew Triggs, whom the Giants designated for assignment.