San Francisco Giants Comeback Win Exemplifies How 2025 Already Feels Different

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The San Francisco Giants are blowing away expectations early this season, but it's not just their current 9-3 record that's impressive, it's the feel this team is starting to have. It's the idea that the Giants are capable of more than anyone outside of the San Francisco Bay area thought they were.
Take 33-year-old veteran first baseman Wilmer Flores, who hit a career-high 23 homers in 2023. He already has five long balls this season. It's still very early and this could end up as just an isolated hot streak for the veteran, but it's pretty rare for a player to have a career-year type start like this in their 13th Big League season.
Through three starts Logan Webb has put himself in the early Cy Young conversation behind a 1.89 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 19 innings. Webb would be the Opening Day starting pitcher for a number of teams, but his velocity is up a bit early on and he's producing at a level that only the best in the game do.
For a team like the Giants to truly challenge a juggernaut like the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, they need surges like the ones they are getting from Flores and Webb. So far, San Francisco's hot start has put manager Bob Melvin in a position to potentially make history at year's end.
If the Giants continue to contend in the NL West and if they make the postseason for the first time since 2021, San Francisco's come-from-behind win over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday is the sort of victory teams that exceed expectations tend to pull off.
The Giants were down 6-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning before putting up four runs, followed by another in the eighth that led to the contest going into extra innings.
Then in the bottom of the tenth inning, career-long Giant Mike Yastrzemski walked them off with a two-run shot into iconic McCovey Cove. Yastrzemski's daughter requested a splash hit from her father, which he delivered in dramatic fashion to finish off the Reds.
San Francisco went 4-2 through their first homestand of the season, with three of those wins coming on walk offs and two finishing in extra innings. Good teams win close games like these, and the Giants are starting to look more like a playoff-bound team every day.
Perhaps the best news of all in this young season for San Francisco is they are 9-3 while their big ticket offseason addition, shortstop Willy Adames, is slashing .184/.241/.224 while still in search of his first homer of the year. Winning tight games while the best player on the team is struggling is a very good sign.
