Kelby Tomlinson made a stunning entrance into the majors with a grand slam on Thursday for the San Francisco Giants.
Kelby Tomlinson’s first career home run was just grand: http://t.co/7NvtbrTNEN pic.twitter.com/4wLiHLVyR1
— MLB (@MLB) August 27, 2015
Tomlinson received a standing ovation and cheers heard round AT&T park. There were nothing but smiles as he rounded the bases and came into the dugout to high-fives from his team mates and skipper.
His journey to the big leagues came by way of an injury to fill in for Joe Panik (another rookie called up that has performed admirably). He arrived on August 3rd from the Sacramento River Cats, and expectations were high from the start.
The Giants have one of the best farm systems of all the teams in MLB. There is no shortage of talented players coming from their triple A ball club now in Sacramento (formerly in Fresno). In 2010, they called up Buster Posey, who won Rookie of the Year. Pablo Sandoval was called up in 2008, Brandon Crawford was called up in 2011. This year Matt Duffy won the starting third base position from the struggling Casey McGehee. And so on and so forth. You get the picture.
So earlier this month when the Giants called up Tomlinson to replace Panik the expectations to perform were there. And Tomlinson did not disappoint. August 5th, he started his first major league game driving in three runs in his first two at bats. Not bad at all. And he has had some stellar plays in the field as well.
So it comes to no surprise when his first home run was a grand slam in today’s win over the Chicago Cubs. And that is no small feat seeing as the Cubs are one of the hottest teams in the National League.
“Playing in the yard as a kid, you just don’t dream of base hits,” Tomlinson said. “You dream of home runs or a grand slam. I’ve never experienced anything like that. It was something special.” (per Alex Pavlovic, csnbayarea.com)
Even when Joe Panik comes off the disabled list it seems it would serve the Giants well to keep Tomlinson on the roster as a back up. Because if he continues his success, then San Francisco will benefit from his talent while in the playoff hunt and well into October.