CINCINNATI — Heliot Ramos will help the Giants make history when he takes the field this afternoon at Great American Ballpark.
Ramos will become the 19th consecutive different player to start in left field for the Giants on Opening Day, tying the 1937-55 St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles for longest such revolving door in major league history.
San Francisco’s run of left fielders has been a running joke in the Bay Area for nearly two decades, an eclectic collection of franchise favorites, veteran journeymen, the team’s current hitting coach and, of course, arguably the greatest player of all-time.
Ramos might have the best chance of anyone in recent memory to break it.
“I would love it,” said Ramos, an All-Star last season. “I’m positive that I can do that if I stay healthy and do what I do best.”
The Giants’ streak of Opening Day left fielders begins with Barry Bonds, who started the opener in 14 of his 15 seasons in San Francisco. Once Bonds retired after the 2007 season, the carousel began.
First it was Dave Roberts, then Fred Lewis, Mark DeRosa, Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Michael Morse, Nori Aoki, Angel Pagán, Jarrett Parker, Hunter Pence, Connor Joe, Alex Dickerson, Austin Slater, Joc Pederson, Blake Sabol, Michael Conforto. On Thursday, Ramos joins the club.
Of Ramos’ 18 predecessors, nearly half — Burrell, Huff, Torres, Morse, Aoki, Pagán, Parker, Pence, Joe, Conforto — weren’t on the team the following season. Pederson is the only one to earn an All-Star selection the same season he started the opener in left.
Despite the rotating cast of characters, the Giants’ left fielders, as a whole, have actually been pretty middle-of-the-pack productive.
Since ‘07, all of San Francisco’s left fielders — Opening Day or otherwise — have accumulated 28.8 WAR, according to FanGraphs, which ranks 18th in all of baseball. By WAR, the worst collection of left fielders belongs to the Chicago White Sox at 15.4. The Giants’ left fielders have been middle of the pack, too, ranking 15th in Weighted Runs Created Plus, or wRC+, which accounts for ballpark, era and offensive environment.
San Francisco hasn’t just had many different Opening Day left fielder, but left fielders period.
The Giants have used 101 different players in left field since ‘07, tied with the Angels for the most at that position over that span. The list includes Ryan Klesko, Pedro Feliz, Travis Ishikawa, Stephen Vogt, Jeff Francoeur, Brett Pill, John Bowker and Yermín Mercedes. Ramos won’t be the only Giant to play left field this year, but the 25-year-old is positioned to provide much needed stability to Bonds’ old domain.
“He was an All-Star last year and he’s deservedly out there again this year,” said manager Bob Melvin. “He’s still a young guy. Been a Giant. First-round pick. You can’t forecast the future, but it’s pretty good for him.”
Ramos already made a fair amount of history in his first full season with the Giants. He became San Francisco’s first homegrown All-Star since Chili Davis in ‘84 and ‘86. On Roberto Clemente Day, the Puerto Rican native became the first right-handed hitter in the history of Oracle Park to hit a home run into McCovey Cove on the fly. After hitting 22 home runs in 121 games last season, Ramos also has a chance to become the first Giant since Bonds to hit at least 30 homers in a single season.
If Ramos has even a decent ‘25, he’ll likely be the Giants’ Opening Day left fielder in ‘26. But as Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” And as Macho Man Randy Savage pontificated, “There’s one guarantee in life, and that there’s no guarantees.”
Giants fans were reminded of that last week. Kyle Harrison, the favorite to be the fifth starter in the Giants’ rotation, still hasn’t fully recovered from a virus that set him back before spring training and the Danville native will start the season with Triple-A Sacramento. Jerar Encarnacion was expected to provide much-needed power to the middle of the Giants lineup, but he is headed for surgery on his left ring finger and is out indefinitely.
Ramos will extend the streak when he takes the field at Great American Ballpark on Thursday afternoon. Time will tell if he’s the one to break it.
“It would be a privilege, for sure,” Ramos said. “An organization like this, it means a lot. It has a lot of legends. They had a lot of left fielders who were great. It would mean a lot to me.”