SAN FRANCISCO – Arriving home near midnight after a game that featured a rain delay and extra innings to end a week-long road trip across the country, Mark Canha felt the hair on his arms rise looking around at a place he grew up going to as a fan, wearing the same orange and black hat and jersey he can now call his work attire. All the lights were off at Oracle Park, bringing a new sense of serenity, followed by sentimental goosebumps for the Bay Area native.
“It means a lot to me, it’s a special place,” Canha said Friday night at his locker through a smile that couldn’t have extended any wider. “It’s a special stadium. … I hold this stadium near and dear to my heart.
“It’s awesome. I’m proud to be a part of all this.”
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Canha in his first home game as a Giant took it all in. Flashbacks of Barry Bonds sending balls into orbit and splashing into McCovey Cove raced through his head walking around the dugout and stepping to the plate. Hours later, Canha played the role of walk-off hero on a night where the Giants couldn’t muster a hit through the first six innings, launching a deep sacrifice fly to the left-field warning track that fell just feet short of a grand slam for a 3-2 comeback win against the Detroit Tigers.
If it weren’t for the Tigers, this new lifelong memory wouldn’t have even come to fruition for Canha. It was only 10 days ago that the Giants acquired Canha from the Tigers. Animosity wasn’t even a thought.
Gratefulness and joy overrode any other emotion he might have been feeling.
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“It was amazing,” Canha said. “It was a really special moment for me, just awesome. An awesome feeling.”
San Francisco manager Bob Melvin was choosing between Canha and Jerar Encarnacion to be the team’s DH against a Tigers team that was using a bullpen game between four pitchers. Encarnacion has hit .280 with a 53-percent hard-hit rate in seven games since being called up, but Canha has been on fire since joining his hometown team. He was batting .467 (7-for-15) in four games as a Giant and went 4-for-6 with a double and two RBI Thursday in their win over the Washington Nationals.
Melvin also has history with Canha and understands what playing at this ballpark for the first time for the Giants would mean to him. San Francisco’s skipper also was Canha’s Oakland A’s manager his first seven years in the big leagues. Their player-coach relationship went a long way in making Canha a Giant, and Melvin never had a doubt when Canha’s back was against the wall with the bases loaded.
“He goes up there probably looking for certain pitches, and then at two strikes he just gets into battle mode,” Melvin said.
Canha quickly got into trouble facing Tigers reliever Shelby Miller, putting himself in an immediate 0-2 hole. He then fouled off an outside fastball and spit on two sliders in the dirt. Miller made the ultimate mistake of throwing a 2-2 fastball in Canha’s wheelhouse, and he made him pay for it.
His mindset was to swing at strikes and make contact. The result eclipsed anything Canha might have imagined.
This is home. Canha starred in high school at San Jose’s Bellarmine College Preparatory, the same high school that Giants hitting coach Pat Burrell attended. He then excelled at Cal before being drafted by the Miami Marlins in 2010.
Melvin is his manager again, Matt Chapman is manning the hot corner at third base as his teammate again and Canha’s family was in the stands Friday night to watch what he dreamed of in their backyard, celebrating on the same field he idolized as a child.
Amazing. Awesome. Special. No truer words could have been said by Canha for a swing 35 years in the making.
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