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And at 8:34 p.m. on June 4 in the City of St. Francis, the Giants scored a fifth run.
The crowd roared. The players celebrated. And the parade plans were in the works.
The sad streak of anemic hitting, extending back to mid-May, finally came to a triumphant halt Tuesday night at Oracle Park. The Giants overcame a five-run deficit to beat the Padres 6-5, and wouldn’t you know it? The guy who scored the long-wished-for fifth run was Daniel Johnson, a Vallejo native who was among three players to join the team Tuesday as part of Buster Posey’s roster shuffle.
Johnson was on second base when Heliot Ramos hit his game-tying, two-run double in the seventh inning. The Giants had failed to score more than four runs in 16 consecutive games, their longest such funk since 1965, and when Johnson bolted around third, on Willy Adames’ heels, the crowd of 34,829 produced possibly the loudest noise of the season at Second and King.
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The cheering continued when Jung Hoo Lee’s sacrifice fly put the Giants on top.
“Speechless,” Johnson said.
Except he wasn’t. He could have talked all night if given the chance. Immediately after the game, he chatted extensively with several family members outside the clubhouse and then addressed a throng of media and later a couple of reporters at his locker.
He provided the exact type of energy boost that Posey, the president of baseball operations, had been seeking for his stagnant offense.
“It means a lot. Hope I’ll be in the lineup tomorrow,” Johnson said with a wide grin, looking ahead to Thursday afternoon’s series finale after enjoying one of the most memorable baseball experiences of his 29-year-old life.
Not only did Johnson collect two line-drive singles up the middle, steal a base, and score two runs, but the right fielder also made a game-saving catch in the ninth inning by chasing down Luis Arráez’s deep drive to Triples Alley. If the ball had dropped, Fernando Tatís Jr. would have scored the tying run.
Johnson didn’t let it happen. According to Statcast, he ran 87 feet at an average of 28.1 feet per second to glove the ball on the grass before his momentum carried him across the warning track and into the wall.
Tatis was forced to retreat to first base, and one batter later, trusty reliever Randy Rodríguez replaced Ryan Walker and got the final two outs for his first career save.
“Gotta go. I had to run,” Johnson said. “He hit it, and I was playing kind of in. I had to run. Go get the ball. I knew I had a pretty good chance. It wasn’t a guarantee, but I needed to keep running to get to that ball.”
The team-wide hitting slump prompted Posey to shake up his roster and promote Johnson and backup catcher Andrew Knizner from Triple-A Sacramento and sign free-agent first baseman Dominic Smith, who opted out of his minor-league contract with the Yankees over the weekend.
Smith went 0-for-4 but made some nice defensive plays, especially when he snagged Arráez’s third-inning liner and then tumbled into foul territory. Knizner didn’t play but will catch Robbie Ray Thursday.
To create roster space, Posey’s former teammate, LaMonte Wade Jr., was designated for assignment, as was catcher Sam Huff, while infielder Christian Koss was optioned to Triple-A.
Posey said “it wasn’t enjoyable” cutting Wade, who has slumped all season, and hopes he lands in a good spot with another team. “I think he understands, and I understand it’s part of the game sometimes, unfortunately. You wish it hadn’t turned out this way, but it’s the way it went.”
The business of baseball requires everyone to turn the page and move on, and the Giants did so splendidly – even after starter Kyle Harrison surrendered five runs on nine hits and exited in the fifth inning after taking a comebacker off his left elbow. How he recovers from his contusion will determine if he can make his next start.
“It’s time to go,” Posey said of the mass transactions. “I think we all believe that we’re better than what we’ve been with the bats the last two and a half, three weeks. It’s time to go.”
Johnson ignited the comeback in the bottom of the fifth when he hit a two-out single, stole second, and scored on Patrick Bailey’s double. Matt Chapman crushed a two-run homer in the sixth, and another Johnson single in the seventh chased starter Nick Pivetta and helped set up Ramos’ two-run double.
As a kid, Johnson attended both Giants and A’s games but mostly visited the Coliseum because of its proximity to his Vallejo home. He remembers sitting in the upper deck and watching Barry Bonds: “Every time he came to the plate, everybody was standing up and waiting for a home run.”
Johnson’s big-league time has been limited with 35 games for Cleveland in 2021 and 2022 and one game last year with Baltimore, and he suited up Wednesday for the first time at Oracle. He made sure to track flyballs during batting practice to feel more at ease in case a Padre got a hold of one.
When Johnson chased down Arráez’s ball in the gap, his personal cheering section from Vallejo joined the rest of the crowd including his parents and two siblings.
“For the most part, the view from right field is the same at most every field,” Johnson said. “Obviously, there are elements to the game. Wind, dimensions. But you trust your instincts and just go.”
Johnson went. So did the Giants’ offense. At last.