Yaz's leadoff HR feat a reminder that he's right where he's supposed to be

BALTIMORE -- When the Giants arrived in Baltimore this week for a rare visit to Camden Yards, Mike Yastrzemski made a point to meet with Orioles manager Brandon Hyde and general manager Mike Elias, and he did so on gentler terms than a younger version of himself might have imagined.

A 14th-round pick by the Orioles in the 2013 MLB Draft, Yastrzemski was 28 years old and plateauing at Triple-A when Elias and Hyde took control of the organization in November ‘18 intent on rebuilding it from the ground up. For someone in Yastrzemski’s situation, it could have been a prime opportunity to break through to the big leagues. But Yastrzemski never got a real look from the new management. Instead, he was sent to San Francisco in a minor deal the following spring, and Hyde became the manager he never played for, Elias the GM who traded him away.

• Yastrzemski honored by 1st Roberto Clemente Award nomination

Yastrzemski, of course, soon blossomed with the Giants, and he is now the team’s longest-tenured player. Ever since, he’s punished his former organization when given the chance. That success continued Wednesday night, when Yastrzemski cranked his second leadoff homer in as many games to send San Francisco toward a 5-3 win over Baltimore.

“Sometimes, the first one of the game might be the best pitch you get,” Yastrzemski said. “So you always have to be ready.”

When Yastrzemski tagged Dean Kremer’s first pitch of the night over the right-center-field wall, he became the first Giants player in nearly 39 years to hit leadoff homers in back-to-back games, since Dan Gladden did it on Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, 1985, against the Reds and the Astros. Michael Conforto also homered in support of Hayden Birdsong (5 2/3 IP, 3 ER) and four relievers as the Giants took the first two games of this series against the flailing O’s.

“Yaz starting the game off with a homer sets the tone, it really does,” Conforto said. “Him showing that he’s ready to go and that he’s going to attack the plan that we talked about before, I think it does a lot for a lineup. So I have to give him a lot of credit.”

Said manager Bob Melvin: “That was pretty cool. He came into the dugout and said he had the same approach he did last night. So you stick with it, right?”

Yastrzemski, who socked a leadoff homer off Albert Suárez in Tuesday’s win, is the fourth player in franchise history to hit a leadoff blast in back-to-back team games, per the Elias Sports Bureau. The others are Gladden, Bobby Bonds (June 5-6, 1973) and Whitey Lockman (July 18-19, 1953).

“He likes leading off,” Melvin said. “He doesn’t care where he hits, but he likes leading off. To hit a home run here to lead off the game for us is a big boost because early innings haven’t been great for us. He’s played his best probably here in the last month, his best baseball since the season started.”

Though the Giants and Orioles don’t meet all that often, and rarely at Oriole Park, Yastrzemski tends to rake when they do. He’s now 7-for-20 (.350) with three homers, a triple, six RBIs, eight runs and four walks in five games against the Orioles in Baltimore.

“There was a long time where I had some animosity toward them because I felt like I should have been in a different place with them,” Yastrzemski said this week. “But I’m at the point where I’m just thankful, honestly, that they traded me when they did and I was able to get an opportunity here. Who knows where I could have been if they didn’t?”

Asked if he still taps into that old animosity when he steps into the batter’s box, Yastrzemski admitted “it’s kind of gone at this point.” He said he sought out Hyde and Elias to “reminisce a little bit,” summarizing the reunion by saying, “It’s always nice to catch up with good people.”

In short, Yastrzemski is at peace with how things turned out. To see him swing this week at Oriole Park has been to see a player confident that he is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

“When I first played here [in 2019], I had a little bit of that [animosity],” Yastrzemski said. “I had been in the big leagues for a week and a half at that point. I was a lot younger. I didn’t understand the process of the game as well as I do now. Looking back on it, maybe it helped me back then. But now it’s about taking advantage of every day and every opportunity that I can and being in a really clean headspace.”