Romo remembers Giants’ run fondly
Sergio Romo pumps his fist and lets out a muted “Yeah!” upon hearing former teammate Brandon Crawford thinks the veteran reliever should be cheered when he makes his first appearance back at the San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park.
Many a player would try to downplay his emotions about returning to where he used to toil, especially when it won’t happen for two more months. Romo, though, has never been one to hide his feelings, whether on the mound or elsewhere.
On this beautiful spring day, he’s happy, jovial, a smile constantly appearing on his bearded face below a Los Angeles Dodgers cap, a look that will take some getting used to for those who watched him in a Giants uniform for nine seasons.
He knows it’ll be jarring for thousands of fans to see him wearing Dodgers blue when the four-time defending National League West champs visit their longtime rivals April 24-27, but he wants them to know he didn’t just jump ship.
“I hope when I get there, they’ll greet me well. I don’t expect it to be all that negative,” said Romo, who has a one-year, $3 million deal with the Dodgers. “I’m sure they’ll let me know I don’t wear their uniform anymore, that I’m wearing different colors. But I think the majority will know my reasons, that it wasn’t like I didn’t want to be there anymore.”
Romo, who turns 34 on Saturday, would have preferred to re-sign with the Giants, who chose him in the 28th round in the 2005 draft and watched the scrawny youngster with the bedeviling slider become a key reliever — at times closing — for three World Series title teams.
But after the Giants endured a major league-high 30 blown saves in 2016, they were determined to shore up the ninth inning and spent $62 million on closer Mark Melancon. That left little room in the budget for Romo, who made $9 million as a setup man in 2016, missed nearly three months with an elbow injury and rankled some on the club with his mound antics.
Romo was concerned enough about how fans would perceive his departure that he sent them a message through the team’s flagship radio station, expressing his appreciation for his time in the Bay Area and their longtime support.
“I didn’t pick another team instead of them,” Romo told USA TODAY Sports. “They told me they didn’t have room for me anymore, that it was time for the young pitchers who deserved it. You respect that. I didn’t leave for the money, because I was offered more elsewhere.”
The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays were among clubs pursuing Romo, with the latter believed to have topped the Dodgers’ offer. Romo said he even had a two-year offer from a team he didn’t name, which was especially tempting because he’s one year, 74 days short of completing 10 years of service in the majors, thus qualifying for a generous pension.
Instead he opted for Los Angeles, following the path recently blazed by popular Giants-turned-Dodgers Juan Uribe and Brian Wilson. Both were booed at AT&T Park after going blue.
Romo said his choice had nothing to do with spite but rather with the chance to play for the club he rooted for growing up in Brawley, Calif., about 200 miles southeast of L.A. Still, he insists a part of him — his heart — remains in San Francisco.
“That history together does not go away,” he said. “There’s no way to erase what we did, not just for the Giants organization but for San Francisco and the Bay Area. We brought them a lot of joy.”
Besides being closer to his family, Romo recognized there was a need he could fill on a strong playoff contender by joining the Dodgers. Though the club says he won’t pitch exclusively in the eighth inning, Romo essentially replaces top setup man Joe Blanton, who left via free agency.
Romo has seen his effectiveness fluctuate in recent years as his below-average fastball has lost zip, but he has kept his ERA below 3.00 in each of the last two seasons and has always given right-handed batters fits. For his career, he has held them to a .187 batting average and a .538 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.
“He obviously has a lot of October experience, a lot of experience pitching late in games and in pennant races,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “He’s one of the best righton-right guys out there.”
It remains to be seen whether Giants fans will be as open-minded as teammates Buster Posey, Hunter Pence and Matt Cain, who reached out with encouraging messages. They certainly won’t be dancing in the aisles to El Mechon, the entrance song that became his signature, along with the T-shirts with not-so-subtle messages.
Born in Brawley — 21 miles north of the border — to Mexican parents, Romo still occasionally wears the T-shirt he unveiled in the parade after the 2012 World Series. The T-shirt, especially apropos at times like these when immigrants are under scrutiny, says, “I just look illegal.”
“I wear it with pride, because that’s just my appearance,” Romo said. “My face does not say who I am, other than the smile I always have. It’s better if they let me show them the person I am.”
The Giants already know. The Dodgers are just finding out.