July has been tough on Jung Hoo Lee.
Tough, especially after a June in which he hit .340 with an .858 OPS and peaked with a two hit night against the Athletics that raised his batting average to a season high .333 on June 23rd. Knocks were coming off his bat like water from a hose. Grounders found holes, flares frolicked in open fields, liners hugged the lines. But for many high contact, low hard-hit guys like Lee the spigot can close just as easily as it can open. The seventh month wasn’t so lucky.
Over 67 at-bats prior to Saturday, he hit just .224 with a .541 OPS. Last night’s 0-for-4 performance saw his batting average drop below the .300 mark for the first time since May 31st. In his first at-bat against Angels’ starter Ryan Johnson, Lee seemed like a completely different person to the hitter he was during his 18-game hitting streak. The right-hander’s two-step motion and sling-y delivery had him flailing. He unhinged a swing on an elevated 2-1 sweeper and the bat nearly flew out of his hands. Next pitch, his helmet flew off whiffing at an inside cutter. Grandson of the Wind? More like Generator of the Wind! It’s jokes like that which made Lee into one of the greatest hitters in recent KBO history. He had had enough. His typically stoic expression turned stony as he walked back to the dugout. It wasn’t the missed cutter that irked him — that was a good pitch — but the breaking ball, lazily flipped out over the plate. Instead of getting off his best swing, he nearly ripped his shoulder out of his socket. That was unacceptable.
An inning later, the offense had Johnson on the ropes. The inherent funk of his motion had bought him a free pass first time through the order, but once the line-up flipped back over for second licks, the situation had changed.
Both Luis Arraez and Heliot Ramos singled. With runners at the corners and one out, Johnson got Eldridge to strikeout, but didn’t have the same success against Rafael Devers and Casey Schmitt. Back-to-back RBI singles got the Giants on the scoreboard and encouraged LA pitching coach Mike Maddux to chat with the 23 year old starter.
The transcript from mound visit probably went something like this: Hey, man, deep breath, you’re doing fine, just take a deep breath, calm down, one more out and you’re through this inning, just trust your stuff, stick to your game plan, don’t over think anything, stick to your game plan, okay, trust the preparation, you know what you got to do, remember how bad Lee looked on that sweeper in the last at-bat, jumping out of his shoes, he looked like s*** swinging at that thing, grandson of the wind, more like generator of the wind, haha, like a fan, yeah, so do that again, that’s the game plan,he’s not looking for your breaking ball, you stole a strike with it to start the at-bat, you made him look bad with it for strike two, then you got him with the cutter, pitch him backwards, start with the sweeper, throw that sweeper, trust it, it’ll be awesome, okay, the umpire is coming so I gotta go, you’re gonna do great, I’m so proud of you, sweeper, throw it, okay, see you in a bit, bye.
The takeaway for Johnson: Throw the sweeper because my coach says so and he believes in me.
What happened: Johnson threw the sweeper. First pitch. Lee knew he would.
The 3-run homer was Lee’s sixth of the year, his first since June 23rd, and jump-started a pretty dang pleasant afternoon. He collected a double off lefty reliever Brent Suter in his next at-bat, tracked down an over-the-head liner to end the 4th, and recorded a Dolly Parton assist (9-5) in the 6th.
Lee wasn’t the only one who enjoyed their day. The deliverer of walk-offs, Rafael Devers, came up a triple shy of the cycle. He picked up Eldridge after his strikeout with a 2-out RBI single in the 3rd, and with two outs again, he ripped a gorgeous line-drive over the wall in left-center.
A 106 MPH punch like that is not something Suter gives up often. His 29.8% hard-hit rate is in the 95th percentile of pitchers. Like Tyler Rogers, he’s a master of dead-fish contact. He’s also a lefty, and for whatever reason, Devers has been completely baffled by southpaws in 2026. Before his homer, he was batting .181 with .530 OPS and a 49 wRC+, which is about as ineffective as you can get in that split. For most of the at-bat, right up until the end, that season-long struggle was evident. Devers waved over two of Suter’s slow-mo change-ups, and fouled off another with an awkward emergency swing. He didn’t look particularly comfortable at the plate. Suter could’ve kept spinning that offspeed, and eventually, Devers would’ve swung through one — but the reliever decided to get cute and tried to sneak a 90 MPH four-seam fastball by him. Devers clocked it and then CLOCKED it.
Another three-run swing that pumped up the lead to 9 runs, putting the game out of reach of Los Angeles bats and more importantly, Giants relievers. While the offense efficiently piled up 9 runs on 9 hits over the first four frames, starter Robbie Ray quietly went about his business. The extended time on the bench between halves didn’t bother him. He wasn’t dominant, nor was he batted around. Five of the six hits he scattered across his six shutout innings were singles. He needed just 80 pitches before Tony Vitello elected to give Tristan Beck and eventually Keaton Winn some low-leverage, no-pressure reps.
It wasn’t pretty, nor did it look easy at times — they walked three, hit a batter, gave up three hits and two runs, but they got through it.
9-2 final. Proud of you boys.
