SAN FRANCISCO – Finally, the music was back to blasting in the Giants’ clubhouse. Strobe lights danced across the ceiling and a team tradition was reignited for all the right reasons after their first home win in exactly four weeks to the date.
As beer and who knows what were sprayed all over Kai-Wei Teng, he couldn’t see what was going on around him. He could barely even breathe. He also wouldn’t dare change a second of his Giants teammates celebrating his first MLB win.
“It was a pretty special experience,” Teng said through interpreter Andy Lin. “I couldn’t even breathe when I was in the beer shower. I couldn’t even see. I couldn’t open my eyes. I just smelled some stinky stuff. I didn’t even know what that was.”
With two left-handed hitters atop the Washington Nationals’ lineup, Giants manager Bob Melvin used lefty reliever Matt Gage to open Friday night’s game at Oracle Park, coming back from a six-game road trip. Gage was able to sit the Nationals down in order, handing the ball over to Teng, who easily had the best performance of his young MLB career in the Giants’ 5-0 win to start off a nine-game homestand.
Teng’s night began by striking out cleanup hitter Nathaniel Lowe in three straight pitches, making him look perplexed at a changeup that dropped off the table and into Patrick Bailey’s glove. He then struck out the next batter, Josh Bell, and retired the first six batters he faced. The sixth out ended on the defensive play of the night from the player who figured to grab the biggest spotlight.
The story of the game was supposed to belong to rookie Drew Gilbert’s MLB debut, a former first-round draft pick acquired from the New York Mets in a trade one week ago that sent reliever Tyler Rogers to the Big Apple. Gilbert chased down a sliced liner down the right-field line and made a crowd-pleasing diving catch, stumbling but still finding a way to snag the ball into his glove.
“I almost lost my footing in the first once I went over the line, so thankfully I was able to hold onto the ball,” Gilbert said. “I think I was OK with my face. Might have got a little dirt on it, but otherwise I was OK.”
Throughout his five shutout innings, Teng, 26, kept finding ways to get out of adversity. James Wood doubled off the right-field wall to start the third inning, only to see Teng retire the next three batters. In the top of the fourth, he ran into his most trouble of the night, finding himself with the bases loaded and no outs. After a mound visit from Giants pitching coach J.P. Martinez, Teng forced a groundout to first baseman Rafael Devers on the first pitch, throwing Bell out at home plate.
Just two pitches later, a curveball from Teng turned into an inning-ending double play.
“Those are the biggest three outs of the game,” Melvin said.
Teng credited Martinez with calming him right when he needed it most.
“It helped me to settle down, just take a deep breath and figure out what kind of strategy and pitches I’m going to pitch and face the next batter,” Teng said. “It helped a lot.”
The start to Teng’s major league career was far from calm. He pitched 11 innings out of the bullpen last season and allowed 12 earned runs with eight walks and seven strikeouts. Teng has bounced back and was enjoying a strong minor league campaign for Triple-A Sacramento this season, where he walked 3.5 batters per nine innings and struck out 14.3 batters per nine innings ahead of his return to the majors last Saturday.
But because of one rough inning, Teng was tagged for five earned runs in a loss to the New York Mets over 3 1/3 innings. Like he did Friday night in front of more than 38,000 Giants fans, Teng wasn’t deterred from the ups and downs of baseball.
His final inning of his first big league win came against the Nationals’ one, two and three hitters in the lineup. Teng took them down in seven pitches, finishing his night by striking out Brady House on a sweeper that ended in the other batter’s box.
The beer-induced celebration is a feeling and smell that will last a lifetime for Teng. The real celebration was 15 hours ahead in Taiwan, where Father’s Day was celebrated the same day Teng took the mound. Teng became the ninth Taiwanese-born pitcher in MLB history to earn a win, and the first since Wei-Chung Wang in September of 2019.
“I want to thank my dad for supporting me over the past 18 years. Anything related to baseball he was always there for me, and I’m just so glad he was there to support me,” Teng said. “I want to say I love you to my dad.”
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast
Read the full article here