LOS ANGELES — Giants manager Gabe Kapler didn’t think his 21-year-old rookie outfielder would be shaken by the bright lights of Dodger Stadium. But Luis Matos showed a level of poise — and swagger — Friday night in his second MLB game that even Kapler didn’t see coming.
“I didn’t know Matos could keep it together like that, to be honest with you,” Kapler said a day later. “It’s not that I doubted his ability to keep it together like that. But there was a confidence and a poise that we saw last night that was really encouraging.”
Matos, the second-youngest position player in MLB, didn’t even need to take the bat off his shoulders to make an impression in his introduction to one of baseball’s most storied and heated rivalries, with the screams of 49,074 fans on top of him in center field.
Matos worked walks in all three of his final plate appearances, including one to lead off the Giants’ three-run rally to take the lead in the eighth inning. After drawing another free pass to lead off the ninth, Matos flipped his bat and attempted to fire up his teammates the first-base dugout.
“I love that moment,” Kapler said. “The reason it’s most encouraging is because he understood how important it was. Players who celebrate walks get it. They get that the name of the game is to not make an out. … Most players don’t celebrate that. They do celebrate the base hits. They do celebrate the home runs. And they rarely celebrate a big take. It’s just not something that you see very often, especially from a young, in this case a 21-year-old, player.”
It was an especially encouraging sign for Matos, whose pedigree as a prospect was built on elite bat-to-ball skills but whose development was fast-tracked once he showed better control of his free-swinging approach, walking more times than he struck out in the minors this season before earning a call-up.
In eight career plate appearances, Matos has drawn more walks (three) than fellow rookie Casey Schmitt, who is still stuck on one through 124 career plate appearances.
Consider Kapler impressed, as well as LaMonte Wade Jr., the Giants’ king of strike zone awareness.
“I think it shows a lot of maturity from a young guy to be able to go out there his first time in Dodger Stadium, to be able to own the strike zone and swing and good pitches,” said Wade, whose 45 walks rank fifth in the National League. “I thought even the swings that he did connect with, the line drive outs to center field, were great swings. As a young guy, you take two good swings in your first two at-bats you might want to go out there in your next at-bats and reach for more because you didn’t get the result that you wanted. But for him to stay within himself and take — or earn — his three walks, it shows a maturity at a young age and shows the type of hitter he is.”
