San Francisco Giants week in review: Ramos, RZA, Rangers, Rhjelle

When I went camping a week ago, the Giants forgot how to play baseball. When I came back, they had a winning streak. According to my expert analysis, this means that you should give me money to pay for an actual hotel room the next time I leave my house. The next move is yours.

While I’m not going to recap this week and the week I missed on vacation, I might dip into the previous week, just to highlight some things that tickled my brain.

Sean Hjelle is going to pitch in the majors for the next 10 years

In the last game Hjelle pitched for the Giants, on June 5, he allowed a home run. He’ll do that more often than the typical sinkerballer if this season is any indication. Which it doesn’t have to be. Single-season homer rates are notoriously fickle. Either way, though, I’m here to spread the gospel of Sean Hjelle, and I’m happy to do it after he wasn’t at his best. He’s been excellent this season. Some might say that I’m spinning tall tales, and, well, they’re right.

Two things you might not have realized about Hjelle’s major-league career so far:

First, he’s added a bit of velocity over the years. Baseball America wrote that Hjelle “generally (sat) 90-92 mph” when he was drafted, but his command would be his calling card. Since then, he’s added at least a couple ticks to his fastball. Sounds great, except his command and control suffered after he started throwing harder. This isn’t unusual, as added velocity typically comes with wonkier command, at least at first. But then there’s a chance that the velocity and command reunite, possibly in a grassy meadow, as they dance around to their heart’s content. That’s sort of what’s happening to Hjelle right now, as he’s been better about spotting his sinker where it should be

I also think there’s a universe in which a team tries to focus on him extending his delivery and releasing the ball as close to the plate as he can, really pushing the limits of what his body is capable of. There’s roughly a 50-percent chance that, in this universe, every muscle and ligament in his shoulder ejects and hits the canopy, like Goose in “Top Gun.” And there’s another 50-percent chance that he’s one of the most dominant relievers in baseball. There’s no in-between.

Second, Hjelle was a bit unlucky in his previous seasons. In his first two seasons with the Giants, he had a 6.17 ERA, but he also had a 3.89 FIP. The first number was absolutely unplayable and untenable. The second number was something you could work with, especially if the increased velocity ever met the previously impressive command. Now he’s spotting the harder sinkers and sweepers. It seems like a winning recipe.

The year is 2034, and a 37-year-old Sean Hjelle takes the mound. I don’t know which team he’s on, and I don’t know the situation. My guess is that it happens, though. He’s a supremely rare baseball creature, and it seems like a lot of it is working.

Here’s the RZA holding a Giants jersey

I can’t express how much this makes me geek out. My first introduction to the RZA wasn’t the Wu-Tang Clan, but a Gravediggaz CD that a buddy burned for me around the time that “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” came out. He’s one of my favorite producers of all-time. I remember trying to parse the key changes in this song as a normie musician in 1997 and giving up.

It wasn’t meant for my brain back then. It was sent in a time machine to my future brain, which still isn’t quite sure what’s going on, but in the best possible way. This song also references Willie Mays within the first 24 seconds, so you know it’s great.

Because of the Giants holding a Wu-Tang night, we all discovered that the uncle of the RZA’s wife was John Rabb, who played on the 1984 Giants with Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow, Dusty Baker, Bill Laskey, Chili Davis, Bob Brenly and Jeffrey Leonard. The list of formative Giants on that team is almost as impressive as the Wu-Tang roster.

Mostly, though, I wanted to point out that Kruk and Kuip are two degrees removed from the Wu-Tang Clan. All of them are on the short list of the people who have most improved my short time on this planet. They all rule.

The Prettiest Home Run of the Week™

It would appear that Heliot Ramos is on one, as they say in the biz. The last time I wrote one of these weekly recaps, Ramos was hitting .274, with a .783 OPS. Good for him! That was a positive development. If Ramos could do that sort of thing consistently, he’d have a long major-league career.

Since then, Ramos has gone bananas. The Giants telecast over the last few days would show a graphic that compared Ramos’ June OPS to Aaron Judge’s June OPS, which is a good reminder that when Judge was the same age as Ramos, he was hitting .179 with 42 strikeouts in 84 at-bats as a rookie. Which isn’t to suggest that Ramos will hit 62 homers in an MVP season, but it’s a reminder that players take all sorts of different paths to the majors. He’s is just 24. That’s not old in baseball terms, and it’s not especially close. What Ramos is doing now is one of the most encouraging developments the Giants could possibly have in 2024.

But this isn’t a section to prognosticate about the future of Heliot Ramos. It’s a section to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of a specific home run. So look at this home run.

The traditionally pretty home run from a right hander is pulled. Think of José Canseco in the SkyDome, or Albert Pujols against Brad Lidge. I have a soft spot for the dead-center homers that take you a second to recognize, though. You can hear Duane Kuiper take his time to get to the “outta here.” We’re used to watching batted balls from a certain angle. And when someone hits a ball in that direction, it’s a fine line visually between a harmless pop-up to center and a blast over the highest and deepest center-field wall in baseball.

The batter knows, though. Ramos knew. He hit the everloving snot out of that baseball, and it’s one of the prettiest homers you’ll see all season.

The Rangers’ center-field camera is a gift from above

Look at the purity of this view.

You see the break. You see why a hitter would think it’s tempting. You see why he couldn’t hit it. (And you can definitely see the hop after a glove-side slider.) All weekend we were treated to this camera. It’s the perfect angle to watch baseball.

Here’s Michael Conforto hitting the second-prettiest homer of the week:

This is the perfect combination of a fastball going exactly where it wasn’t supposed to go and a pitcher reacting like, “Dang it! That fastball was not supposed to go there, heavens to Betsy, consarnit.” And the camera makes it all better.

Rangers fans get to listen to Bruce Bochy make Bruce Bochy noises and do his thing, which is pretty cool. But I’m most jealous of their center-field camera. It might be the best in the majors.

(Photo of Hjelle in his June 5 outing: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)