NEW YORK — Wilmer Flores might have figured out a key to cold-weather hitting. Never walk on the field until it’s your turn to bat.
Here at Candlestick East, a.k.a. Yankee Stadium, the Giants are playing a three-game series under brutally chilly conditions better suited for football or cross-country skiing. They’re certainly not baseball friendly. Game-time temperatures the past two days were 44 and 41 degrees. The rain was steady. The winds were tricky. The field was sloppy.
But there was the 33-year-old Flores, bearing the bitter cold by swinging a blazing bat.
“It’s pretty insane,” Giants pitcher Jordan Hicks said of Flores’ hot start this season. “I only got to see spurts of it last year. So to see Flo in his element, it’s been really fun to watch and a good surprise.”
Flores easily could have been phased out this season. Even bought out. His awful 2024 season could have been a precursor to his exit from the Giants, who could have gone another direction. Could have found someone else to fill his roster spot.
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Instead, he’s still here and is the Giants’ top run producer. In Saturday’s 8-4 loss to the Yankees, Flores drove in all of the Giants’ runs with a two-run homer and two-run single, pulling himself into a tie for the majors’ home run lead with six and trailing only Aaron Judge on the RBI chart with 19.
By far, Flores leads the Giants in both categories — No. 2 is Heliot Ramos with three homers and nine RBIs.
“I keep saying it. It just feels good helping the team,” said Flores, refusing to get too giddy over his early-season contributions and .929 OPS, a nice bump over last year’s .585. “Just like any other season, you always try to start with the right foot. It doesn’t always happen.”
When the weather is abundantly cold and windy and wet, perhaps the best defensive position to play is … none. Flores is the designated hitter, so he hasn’t needed to stand on the field with a glove inning after inning. He could escape to the comfort of the clubhouse batting cage until his turn to bat comes up.
“It’s worse for them,” Flores said of his teammates. “I’m DHing. I’m basically in the cage staying warm.”
Flores’ second-inning homer off Will Warren tied the game 2-2. It was his first career homer at Yankee Stadium in 55 plate appearances in the Bronx, many coming while playing in a neighboring borough with the Mets. After the Yankees erupted for five runs in the fifth off Jordan Hicks, Flores stepped up in the sixth and slapped a two-run single to right-center.
Both the hits off Warren were sinkers that went to the opposite field, which has been a pattern for the Giants this season. But Flores insisted he wasn’t trying to go to right field.
“I’m a pull hitter,” he said.
For someone who had just four homers and 26 RBIs in 2024, a season that went sideways because of a bum knee that required season-ending surgery in August, Flores is revitalizing his career. He’s the first Giant with at least six homers in his first 14 games since Barry Bonds in 2004, and the 19 RBIs are fifth most in Giants history through the first 14 games.
“He’s just into his legs,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Last year, with the knee issue he had, he really couldn’t drive the ball. Early last season, we saw a little bit of it as we went along, and it was getting worse and worse. He was getting treatment every day, and then he ended up having to have the surgery. It’s just a different guy right now.”
The series’ first two games had a distinct Candlestick Park vibe, eerily reminiscent of the Giants’ former home that was known for its cold and wind. Melvin can tell you all about it as a former Giants catcher who played at the Stick for three seasons in the late 1980s. So can third-base coach Matt Williams, a Giants third baseman for 10 seasons through 1996.
In Friday’s opener, when third baseman Matt Chapman began to camp under a popup near the bag only to watch it get blown out of play and into the stands, it was a telltale sign that the elements this weekend would be a major challenge. Just like the good ol’ Candlestick days. Saturday, Ramos had trouble tracking Cody Bellinger’s first-inning drive that carried to the warning track and popped off Ramos’ glove for an RBI triple.
“Definitely been part of some rainy ones and some cold ones,” Hicks said. “This is top-three, top-five coldest.”
Friday’s starter, Robbie Ray, had similar sentiments, and next up is Logan Webb, Sunday’s starter.
“It wasn’t good conditions to play baseball,” said Flores, who made the best of it Saturday in a losing cause.