What we learned as Wilmer Flores’ homer seals Giants’ Opening Day comeback win originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
CINCINNATI — It was mentioned every day during spring training. Situational hitting, situational hitting, situational hitting. The Giants needed to get better with runners on base.
It appears all of that work paid off.
Patrick Bailey tied it up with two outs in the ninth on Opening Day and Wilmer Flores followed with a three-run homer, stunning the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park. With a 6-4 victory, the Giants gave one hell of a birthday present to Buster Posey, who was in the executive’s booth for the first time as president of baseball operations.
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The late rally started with a Jung Hoo Lee walk and included a Matt Chapman single. After Bailey’s single, Flores unloaded on a hanging slider from Ian Gibaut.
During the first three innings, the Giants got a reminder of how dangerous it is to trust spring training results. They didn’t face many marquee pitchers while winning 21 games during the exhibition season, but Reds ace Hunter Greene came out sitting at 100 mph and dominated for the first hour. The Giants struck out six times the first lap through the order and 16 overall, but they came through when it counted.
Greene is a dark horse Cy Young candidate, and he might have the National League’s best four-seamer. He threw it 70 percent of the time, topping out at 101.7 mph and averaging 99.2. The Giants were stuck in the mud until Heliot Ramos took Greene deep in the fourth, cutting the deficit to one. Logan Webb kept it there and the bullpen had a strong day, with Ryan Walker closing it out after Flores’ bomb.
Can you lock up at-bat of the year on the first day of the season? It’ll be hard for any Giant to top what Ramos did in his second at-bat.
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The Giants had just one hit when he came up in the top of the fourth, but he fouled off five straight two-strike pitches from Greene — all at 98 or 99 mph — before hitting a high fly ball to left that kept carrying and snuck over the wall for a two-run homer.
The first Giants homer of the year came on the 11th pitch of the at-bat. That was the most pitches seen by a Giant before homering since May 12, 2023, when Michael Conforto unloaded on the 12th pitch of an at-bat.
The best time, sometimes the only time, to get to Webb is in the first inning. The Reds did it with a two-out rally and then tacked on two more runs in the third. In his fourth consecutive Opening Day start, Webb was charged with three earned runs in five innings on six hits and three walks.
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Webb struck out five, and his first of the 2025 MLB season came on his cutter, a pitch he didn’t even throw until last May and rarely used before this spring. He threw 13 of them against a Reds lineup heavy on left-handed hitters.
Webb threw his changeup only nine times, although there were some characteristics there he’ll probably be happy with. He’s trying to widen the velocity gap between his changeup and sinker; the change averaged 86 mph on Thursday and the sinker was at 92.3, topping out at 94.8.
Willy Adames has 19 career homers against the Reds and he nearly got his 20th. In the top of the fourth, he hit a high fly ball to right that kept carrying the same way Ramos’ did, but Jake Fraley caught it on the track.
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Overall, it was a quiet debut for the longtime NL Central star. Adames struck out in his other three at-bats, including a leadoff whiff in the ninth. The most notable moment defensively was a tricky one.
Adames made a slick stop of Gavin Lux’s grounder up the middle in the third, but he couldn’t beat Elly De La Cruz to the bag at second and the hesitation cost him a chance to get Lux at first. With the bases loaded, Jeimer Candelario drove in a pair with a single.
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