Giants’ Smith, A’s Chapman AllStars
Bruce Bochy held a team meeting in the Giants’ clubhouse Sunday morning to congratulate reliever Will Smith on making the National League AllStar team.
The news from the manager was not particularly surprising.
“I congratulated him like a week ago,” Giants starter Madison Bumgarner said, perhaps in jest, perhaps not.
Smith’s credentials border on impeccable. He has converted all 21 of his save opportunities. The lefthander owns a 2.16 ERA. He has racked up 51 strikeouts — and only eight walks — in 331⁄3 innings.
“I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet,” Smith said of his selection to the game in Cleveland on July 9. “It feels pretty cool right now. To sit out that year and come back and to have this kind of success, I don’t know if I ever really thought it would be this good, but it feels good that your hard work pays off.”
Smith missed all of the 2017 season and the first month of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He had 14 saves and a 2.55 ERA last season.
Bochy said that Smith, whom San Francisco acquired from the Brewers in July 2016, is not an overnight sensation.
“He’s been good for a while, a long time,” Bochy said. “That’s why we went out and acquired him. That’s how good we thought he was. He was good for Milwaukee and he’s done a great job here.”
Outfielder Kevin Pillar had not known much about Smith until the Giants acquired Pillar from Toronto in early April.
“Will is obviously up until this point a very underrated player,” Pillar said. “If you asked me when I got traded over here who was closing games for San Francisco, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But, (he’s) as dominant a closer as I’ve seen.”
Smith becomes the Giants’ first lefthanded reliever to make the AllStar team since Gary Lavelle in 1983.
Briefly: Giants catcher Buster Posey went 3for3 with a walk Sunday. … Arizona manager Torey Lovullo got ejected by homeplate umpire Mike Muchlinski in the fifth inning. … The Giants went 1413 in June, their first winning month since going 1810 last June.