San Francisco Giants Late Opening Day Heroics Set Tone of New Era for Franchise

The San Francisco Giants got the season started off right, but it may have meant more than just one win.

Mar 27, 2025; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; San Francisco Giants designated hitter Wilmer Flores (41) high fives catcher Patrick Bailey (14) after hitting a three-run home run in the ninth inning against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park. | Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants got their season started off on the right foot with a thrilling 6-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on the road for Opening Day on Thursday.

Though the Giants will not play again until Saturday, the elation of the exciting win should carry fans from Thursday afternoon all the way through the 48 hours until they can see their team play again.

For San Francisco, it was the late heroics from one of their veterans — designated hitter Wilmer Flores — which carried them to victory, blasting a three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning to give his team the lead:

WILMER FLORES GOT YOU! https://t.co/gDfCyCd0BV pic.twitter.com/1PZMii4aY1

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) March 27, 2025

While the victories in March matter just as much as the victories in September in terms of the standings and it's always nice to start your season with a win, Thursday felt like much more than just a 1-0 start.

It felt like the start of a new era of Giants baseball.

Buster Posey — someone who knows perhaps more than any single individual what it takes to win in San Francisco — inherited a franchise that has quite bluntly been mediocre over the better part of the last decade.

With seven missed postseasons in the last eight years and overall just non competitive baseball in the Bay Area, an injection of life was desperately needed, and Posey could be just that.

Last season, the Giants made it a habit to squander potential runs. In situations with runners in scoring position, San Francisco ranked as a team No. 26 in Major League Baseball in OPS and No. 24 in batting average.

They simply were not good enough at the plate when they had the chance to put runs on the board, and it's ultimately what kept them nowhere near the playoffs as has been regularly the case as of late.

This was not a team that was good enough when the margins were thin and games were close, and these are the things that ultimately make the difference between 80 wins and 90 wins.

Sure, the absolute barn-burning victory over the Reds to kick off the 2025 season is just that: a victory in the win column rather than a tally in the loss column to start the year.

But it felt like so much more than just a simple March win.

This was the beginning of the Giants return to the upper echelon of baseball.