The Giants are surging, and Drew Gilbert is providing the spark: 'It's given us some life'

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Combine Travis Ishikawa’s reaction to his pennant-winning home run, Sergio Romo’s response to his World Series-clinching strikeout of Miguel Cabrera and the all-time Buster hugs, and you’re left with a pretty good indication of what it’s like to be Drew Gilbert.

“Energy” is his middle name. Or at least it ought to be.

“I put in a lot of work to get here,” the Giants’ highly animated rookie outfielder (and internet sensation) told The Standard on Tuesday. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t let it fly when you go out on the field. You don’t put in all that work just to come out here and go into a shell.”

Gilbert’s dugout rituals are so unusual and zany that a camera seems to be pointed his way at all times to capture all that he does. At any given moment, he can be spotted swatting the top of the dugout rail, screaming at the top of his lungs (even when Matt Chapman’s hands are around his neck), and chewing on Robbie Ray’s warmup jacket while shaking his head uncontrollably.

It’s not exactly the behavior befitting of a traditional big-league ballplayer, let alone a rookie, who in the old days was supposed to be seen and not heard. But it’s 2025, and anything goes, apparently, including with Gilbert, who arrived from the Mets at the trade deadline in the Tyler Rogers deal and has been a key component to the magnificent late-season run.

“I don’t know where it comes from,” Gilbert said. “I just kind of roll with whatever comes through my head. It just happens. Nothing is forced. It’s organic, and whatever happens happens. Especially when we get a rally going, you try to keep it going as long as you can. You want it to be a party in the dugout. When it's a party in the dugout, even if you don't realize it, you're subconsciously a little more motivated to win and celebrate.”

The party continued Tuesday night when the Giants beat the Diamondbacks 5-3 and further closed in on the Mets, who lost 9-3 in Philly, for the final wild-card spot. Continuing their fascinating playoff drive, the Giants are just two games behind the Mets with 17 games to play – actually, three games back when figuring the Mets own the tiebreaker.

When Willy Adames hit a three-run homer to put the Giants ahead in the first inning, Gilbert boisterously greeted him and embraced him above the dugout steps. Patrick Bailey also homered, Ray earned his 11th win with five innings of two-run ball, and four relievers finished the job.

The Giants have won 13 of 16, and Gilbert, fast becoming a fan favorite, has played a role. After going 1-for-18 in his first seven games, all losses except one, he’s hitting .298 in the past 18 games (the Giants went 14-4 in that stretch) and .353 in the past 11 (8-3).

He’s just what the Giants needed, a guy who pumps energy and intensity into a team that sometimes lacked both during their dark middle-of-the-season days, and team veterans have been quick to embrace all that he stands for.

“Some of it is obviously a little insane,” Chapman said, “but it’s given us some life. We’re having fun with it. It’s not something you see every day, but it’s been working for us.”

Before every game, just before the players take the field, Chapman can be seen with his hands around Gilbert’s neck and Gilbert hollering. Nobody’s choking anyone. It’s more a gag than anything, a baseball-y way to get the juices flowing.

“It started pretty much with him getting too close to me and me getting him off me as a joke, and it kind of turned into its own thing,” Chapman said. “It’s my restraining order against him.”

As for Gilbert chewing on Ray’s clothing during a five-run rally Monday, the pitcher said, “I’ve got four kids, so I’m used to it. We love Drew. We want him to be himself. We know who he is. He brings the energy every night. It’s fun. It’s contagious. He’s loud in the dugout, loud in the clubhouse. We don’t want him to change.”

Adames agreed: “We don’t want to change him just because he’s a rookie.”

Baseball once was a sport in which in-game celebrations were frowned upon. Unlike the NBA and NFL, Major League Baseball was slow to make it acceptable for players to show their personalities and express their individualism, thanks to unwritten rules that governed the game in old-school principles.

That changed over the years, and players now are free to get creative when celebrating individual or team feats. There’s no longer much interference – unless you’re Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland, who objected to Rafael Devers’ slow home run trot last week, initiating a benches-clearing donnybrook.

A generation earlier, Giants World Series legend Madison Bumgarner had a similar mentality, barking at hitters who tended to stand and admire their home runs. The game has changed, and the Giants’ new outfielder is a prime example.

“I think you can appreciate any sort of intensity whether it's Madison Bumgarner or anyone else,” Gilbert said. “I know that guy's goal was to win. I mean, he's a perennial winner here, a world champion for a reason. Intensity can be displayed in a bunch of forms. The clubhouse is filled with guys who express it in different ways. So just being able to find that bond where everybody seems to be on the same page is crucial.”

Nobody seems to have the perfect comp for Gilbert, whose animated style may or may not draw comparisons to Pete Rose, Kirby Puckett, Hunter Pence, Jonny Gomes, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, and Bill “Spaceman” Lee. It’s not like Gilbert emulated any of those guys. He claims the style just materialized. He was this way at the University of Tennessee and, to an extent, at Stillwater High School in Minnesota.

“Well, I guess it came out in high school, too,” he said. “Everything’s a little different, though. You’re playing in front of five people in high school, and you’re playing in front of 10,000 in college. So it’s all relative.”

More than 30,000 fans attended Tuesday’s game, though Gilbert didn’t do much to wow them. He went 0-for-3 with three groundouts. More importantly, the Giants won the game and can still dream of October baseball.

“It’s all about winning, man,” Gilbert said. “Doing all this rah rah stuff and losing means nothing to me.”

His teammates want him to continue energizing the dugout and clubhouse and producing on the field, and he’s all aboard.

“I enjoy being around teammates, being around the team. It’s fun,” Gilbert said. “Where else would you rather be? Nothing better than having a good, close group with good team camaraderie. It’s how you win games. I enjoy it. I enjoy rooting on my teammates.

“You never know how long any of this is going to last, right? So you try to savor every moment of it and enjoy every second of it.”