Blake Sabol's walk-off extends Giants' wild City Connect jersey run
What's behind Giants' success in bright City Connect jerseys? originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The question admittedly is a slightly dumb one, but given the mounting evidence, it had to be asked at some point. Tuesday afternoon, with the City Connect jerseys hanging in the lockers and the Giants riding high after three straight wins, felt as good a time as any.
"Do you have any explanation for why you guys are so good in the City Connects?" I asked several of the Giants who have been around for the whole ride.
"I have no explanation for it," Logan Webb said.
"I don't know," Brandon Crawford said. "I really don't know."
"No clue," LaMonte Wade Jr. said.
The Giants were 18-6 in the bright orange jerseys at the time, and they picked up No. 19 in the most dramatic fashion possible.
Blake Sabol's walk-off on Tuesday at Oracle Park extended the current winning streak to four games and got them to 10-13 on the season. Two of those wins, two of the better ones, have come in the City Connect jerseys, which the Giants wear for all Tuesday night home games. The only other City Connect night so far this year was April 11, when they blanked the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0.
"First game we got a shutty against the Dodgers, now we've got this happening," Sabol said after the game. "Yeah, I'm a big believer in these unis."
The Giants won on Tuesday night because Sabol had the right game plan in the game's biggest spot and showed off his natural power, not because they looked like Creamsicles. But the numbers certainly are compelling. Through 25 City Connect games over the last three seasons, the Giants now have outscored opponents by 47 runs.
The staff measures everything these days, from the run on a sinker when a pitcher grabs the seams differently to the month-by-month sprint speeds of opposing outfielders, but a high-ranking member of the analytics staff smiled and said he had never looked into the City Connect magic. He had an idea of what's behind it, though.
"It's probably because Logan Webb pitches most of those games," he said, laughing.
That's actually a huge part of it. Webb was on the mound for the first City Connect game on July 9, 2021, a start that came right in the middle of his breakout season. The staff ace has pitched nine of the 25 games in bright orange and the team has won eight of them, with Webb posting a 4-1 record and 1.29 ERA.
Webb said the main thing that stands out to him on those nights is simply that he gets to wear white cleats.
"I do know we play well in them," he said. "I don't know why, but I know I've done well in them."
The funny thing about the success is that the players don't seem to actually care too much for the design, which horrified most Giants fans when it was unveiled in 2021. Most within the clubhouse describe the jersey itself as "fine," with one veteran saying the Giants are firmly in the middle of the City Connect pack.
The jersey has the Golden Gate Bridge on the sleeve and has a heavy emphasis on the city's fog, which drew mixed reviews when it first was released. Crawford said his main initial takeaway was that it looked like an orange Gatorade bottle.
"I was joking they probably could have made them a little more loud," former Giants co-ace Kevin Gausman said two years ago. "The fog is a little ... I think there's so much more that goes into the city than the fog. But that's just my personal opinion. I think they should have dressed us up like prisoners at Alcatraz or something."
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For all of the early complaints, the City Connect jerseys, hats and hoodies proved to be among the most popular items in the team store in 2021, and fans -- and players -- certainly found it easier to get on board when the jersey itself seemed unbeatable. The Giants won eight of nine games in their City Connects in 2021, which is perhaps where the "magic" idea falls apart.
As he thought about the overall record, Crawford hit on a key element.
"We started wearing them in 2021," he pointed out. "We didn't lose a lot that year. We didn't lose in our creams a whole lot, or our orange jerseys, or the black, or the grays ... that's probably the reason."
Yes, that's the easiest answer when pondering the overall success. There was something magical about that 107-win season, and the City Connect jerseys were part of that ride.
Wade was the breakout star of that season, and as he stood on the dugout steps a few hours before Sabol's walk off and pondered a question about the jerseys' success, he came up with one of his own.
"If we're that good in them, should we be wearing them more often?" he asked, smiling.
