CHICAGO -- Whenever Blake Sabol put in a new order for bats in the minor leagues, he would make sure that a couple of them were unusual. He didn't want every bat to look the same, and during the last couple of seasons, he found that he was particularly productive when using the bats designed by his fiancée.
"I always used to rake with her design and my coaches with the Pirates would say the same thing: 'That's because it's made with love,'" he said Thursday afternoon, laughing.
There is nothing stronger, although when you're playing for the San Francisco Giants, there is a bit of mystique that comes close.
Good things tend to happen to first-year Giants when they turn to the power of Barry Bonds, so before Thursday's game, with just a bunt single in his first 12 at-bats, Sabol pulled out a bat that had been painted to look like the ones Bonds used to use. He got a grooved cutter from Lance Lynn in his first at-bat and did what Bonds did so often, crushing a 434-foot homer into the bushes well beyond the center field wall.
Sabol's first big-league homer was one of five on the day for the Giants, who won 16-6 to even up their record on the road trip. With apologies to the future Mrs. Sabol, the rookie might have a new favorite bat.
"This year being with the Giants and Barry Bonds being my favorite player, I tried to get the paint job like his," Sabol explained. "This was my first day with it. I only hit it in the cages and during on-field BP. That was my first at-bat with it."
Sabol followed the homer with two singles, doubling his OPS and giving him a more respectable .333 on-base percentage through his first six big league games. The timing could not have been better.
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Because Sabol is a Rule 5 pick, the Giants need to keep him on the roster all season or offer him back to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sabol was so good in camp that the Giants felt they needed to take the risk, and when Mitch Haniger, Austin Slater and Joey Bart all got hurt, they ended up with more breathing room than they expected.
Still, there will come a time when roster spots aren't so easy to come by, so every day for Sabol is an audition of sorts. He has fared well in left and has gotten solid reviews behind the plate, but the Giants have him here because they believe in the bat, and through five games, the only production he had was a bunt single against the New York Yankees.
If it was weighing on Sabol, it certainly didn't show. He said he joked with family members that a hit-by-pitch that bounced off his hip went further than his first hit, and in recent days, teammates helped him realize how early it still is.
"Everything gets magnified at the beginning of the season," he said. "There's going to be probably another stretch like this but hopefully by then I've built up a little padding. Something that's been awesome is all my teammates haven't lost any faith in me, my coaches haven't lost any faith in me.
"I kept telling them, 'They're coming, they're coming.' They're like, 'Yeah, dude, you have, what, 12 at-bats? Relax.'"
Hitting coach Justin Viele said the staff wasn't wavering, having seen in spring training that when Sabol gets rolling, the hits come in bunches. This coaching staff doesn't make grand proclamations off small samples, anyway, but it's particularly important to stay grounded on a trip like this, which started with a rookie making his first big league start at Yankee Stadium while also facing two of the leading Cy Young Award candidates in the American League in his first week in the Majors.
"Today he ran into a couple of balls, which will be good for him," Viele said. "It's a lot of confidence for him."
Sabol has never been lacking in that department. This spring, he admitted he was a "cocky little kid," and at Yankee Stadium last week he didn't shy away from what was to come. He said he couldn't wait to hear what the fans in the bleachers had waiting for him, and a day later he excitedly recalled some of what was yelled his way.
When Sabol checked his positioning card before an Aaron Judge at-bat, he couldn't help but laugh as fans yelled that all he had to do was look into the seats to see where he should be standing. He smiled along as fan after fan yelled that it was offensive for anyone but Derek Jeter to wear No. 2 at Yankee Stadium.
It was much quieter in Chicago, but on Thursday it was Sabol who brought the noise. Manager Gabe Kapler called it his "breakout game," adding, "hopefully, it's one of many."
Thursday's game wiped away any sour taste in Sabol's mouth from the first five games of the trip, but that quickly returned in a different form. Like Bryce Johnson before him in this series, Sabol was pulled into the clubhouse shower for the traditional first-homer dousing with anything and everything in sight. Alex Wood said Sabol surprised teammates by opening his mouth.
Sabol wasn't sure what he digested, but said he tasted vegetable juice, shaving cream and beer, among other things. His eyes were mostly closed but he caught a glimpse of Joc Pederson spraying mouthwash out of a container with a pump.
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The day started with the right decision as Sabol reached into his bat bag. It ended with a valuable clubhouse lesson.
"I was trying to fire the boys up," Sabol said, smiling. "I might have regretted that one."