SMASHING DEBUTS
Williamson, Samardzija return to lead Giants past Angels
ANAHEIM – Mac Williamson stood at his locker, insisting he was no savior.
Sure, he’s not the second coming, but he is the rare mortal who can destroy a baseball.
With one violent swing that cut through the strike zone on Friday night, Williamson announced his return to the Giants with a glorious opening salvo that opened the floodgates in an 8-1 win over the Angels.
Williamson’s two-run home run off Andrew Heaney in the top of the fifth inning didn’t just provide the Giants with a 3-0 lead, it injected a new source of energy into a unit craving a power source.
After the Giants scored a total of five runs in three games in a series loss in Arizona this week, Williamson arrived in Anaheim on Friday to make his 2018 debut.
The 27-year-old outfielder was called up to replace Hunter Pence, who was sent to the disabled list to heal an ailing thumb. Williamson’s return to the Major Leagues wasn’t part of a “next-man-up” scheme, but rather an opportunity for him to showcase that his prolific Triple-a numbers were for real.
On night one, a 114-mile per hour laser off of Williamson’s bat offered the Giants a fairly strong indication of what’s to come. Through 19 games this season, the hardest hit ball by a Giant now belongs to a player who needed just two at-bats to produce such electrifying contact.
Williamson’s 434-foot laser beam into the right center field seats was just the second hit of the night off of Angels’ lefty Andrew Heaney, but it tilted the contest in the Giants’ favor.
Bunt hits from Gorkys Hernandez and Kelby Tomlinson and an RBI single from Austin Jackson forced Heaney to work from the stretch befor he made another costly mistake.
After working ahead 0-2, Heaney threw a curveball in the dirt and then gifted Andrew Mccutchen an inside fastball he crushed deep in the air into the left-field bleachers.
Mccutchen’s three-run shot marked his second of the season and third home run as a Giant. It also provided a healthy cushion for another Giant making his 2018 debut on Friday night: Jeff Samardzija.
Though Williamson’s arrival in the clubhouse Friday stole headlines, the Giants received an impressive outing from Samardzija in his first start of the season.
Samardzija spent the first three weeks of the season on the disabled list due to a strained right pectoral muscle he suffered near the end of spring training. The strain forced Samardzija to miss starts due to injury for the first time in his career, and frustrated a pitcher who has a tough time waiting four days between outings as it is.