The 2017 San Francisco Giants have lacked energy, power and clutch hitting.
Enter Jae-gyun Hwang.
On Wednesday, the 29-year-old South Korean sensation made his major league debut at AT&T Park as the Giants’ starting third baseman, and Hwang delivered a dose of what the team’s been missing all season.
With the Giants and Rockies tied 3-3 in the bottom half of the sixth inning, Hwang smoked a 2-0 fastball high into the left field bleachers to give San Francisco a 4-3 lead and push Bruce Bochy’s ballclub to its first series sweep of the season.
“He (Hwang) plays with a lot of emotion and he’s got a lot of fire and that’s what you love about him,” Bochy said. “In fact, they had a nice video of him with his bat flips out in Korea. He’s a clutch hitter. You look at what he’s done as far as his body of work out in Korea, he’s been a big RBI guy so those guys do have a way of stepping up in the moment.”
Hwang’s home run powered the Giants to their first three-game win streak since the middle of May, and allowed a team that’s been searching for ways to make baseball more fun to enjoy a lively clubhouse celebration.
After Wednesday’s victory, the Giants greeted Hwang with a beer shower, a tradition he said isn’t practiced in his home country.
“They were so excited for him, happy for him,” Bochy said of Hwang’s teammates. “They all know what he’s been through, he’s given up baseball in Korea to come here and try to make it to the Major Leagues here and he reaches his dream, that’s playing here and hits a home run. A huge home run to go with that and so he got a nice beer showed in there, that’s why I’m a little late here and it’s a special moment. These are moments you love and you have tough times in this game but when something like this happens you know, it’s a special occasion that you try to savor.”
Hwang said Wednesday morning that playing in his first Major League game would provide him with an opportunity to live out his childhood dream, but said he never could have imagined hitting a home run in his debut.
The 29-year-old infielder spent 10 seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization before moving to the United States this spring. Hwang impressed during Spring Training with the Giants, but began his professional career with the AAA Sacramento River Cats instead of with the big league club.
On Wednesday, though, Hwang finally received the opportunity he’s been waiting for, and he was ready to drink it all in.
“There’s not such a thing in Korea, but I’ve gotten to know that there is such a thing a few moments ago,” Hwang said of the beer shower. “But I was actually more surprised about how cold the beer was.”