The Sandoval saga

The panda is back…again

The animated series “Kung Fu Panda” will release its fourth installment on March 8th, a couple of weeks after Pablo Sandoval started his career’s third installment as a San Francisco Giant. Tired and worn, another sequel, another money grab—and what of the Giants’ own Panda reprisal? Did the franchise not just finally move on from its decade-old dynasty with the end of Brandon Crawford’s tenure? Did the club not only promise to move forward with cultivating its prospects while making swings with offseason signings to improve its on-field product? Now this?

As much as the move can elicit an eye roll, does not the return of a familiar face spark the knot of kindling nested in the dry burrow of your soul? Sandoval’s return to camp as a non-roster invitee should be taken as seriously as Jack Black voicing an endangered bear species with a penchant for martial arts for the fourth time in 16 years. Don’t be the person to leave the theater tutting loudly that Kung Fu Panda 4 was the “furthest thing from Fellini.” Of course you’re right, but that’s not the point. It’s harmless, and if it works, it’s the most fun us Giant fans will have had since the previous sequel.

I don’t want to be flippant either. Baseball is all about leaving home and returning to it, the rippling concentric circles of a play and an inning and a game and a season and a career. Sandoval as Odysseus with his series of incidents that compound his lore. He’s lived an epic in this game, and he’s returned to Ithaca with a story—one that wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if he never left.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The nickname “Kung-Fu Panda” was given by teammate Barry Zito after Sandoval skirted a tag at the plate to score a run against the Dodgers in 2008.

The play is a classic on multiple levels. For one, Greg Maddux is on the mound and argues the call with Joe Torre as his back-up; Randy Winn scores easily from third; Matt Kemp heaves the throw from center—isn’t it fun to be around old friends? Two, it’s just hectic, the furthest from smooth. Sandoval leapfrogs the ball at second, then runs through a stop sign rounding third. The ball beats him to home by plenty and the white flag should’ve been flown there. Instead, the young and stubborn Sandoval baits the catcher’s tag, starfishes to avoid it, then lunges back to the plate. Unorthodox, reckless, impressive and a cherry on top that this play frustrated the likes of baseball royalty.

A month into his playing career, Mike Krukow was already calling him “magic.”

This kind of physical improvisation became a trademark of Sandoval’s and was always performed with relish. He’d go out of his way to get his jersey dirty. He loved to throw from his knees or throw his body to the ground or over a dugout rail. The preferred end to a rundown was a fully extended dive at the runner’s posterior. He literally did the splits running to second to avoid a tag and break-up a double play. And of course, the iconic falling on his back as the final out of the 2014 World Series landed in his mitt. The end of the Giants’ dynasty ended with Sandoval spread out on the grass.

For all the love that was behind the nickname, it also gets at what ultimately drove Sandoval away from San Francisco after the 2014 season. The joke of Kung-Fu Panda is that pandas are the furthest thing from “kung-fu”, or lithe, agile, fleet. They don’t “glide” they “barrel” around second. They don’t “dive” but “flop.” On the one hand the nickname celebrated the very real “magic” of Sandoval’s animated physicality, but it also may have made it okay for us to be overtly and overly critical of Sandoval’s physique.

Diets were ordered by the team. His weight was blamed in 2010 for his lack of performance after his breakout year in 2009, and ultimately meant he sat out the World Series against the Rangers. Sandoval’s build was always a talking point, a point of contention with the club when his offensive numbers slipped. After hitting .315 with .552 slugging in 2011, he never hit higher than .283 or slugged higher than .447 over the next three seasons—not a devastating dip in production (his OPS+ continued to be solidly above average) but a dip nonetheless. When something like that happens, fingers are pointed, blame passed down, easy solves sought after. The individual gets lost in the jumble of numbers.

It was a subject that Sandoval didn’t want to have to keep talking about. After three World Series rings, World Series MVP, All-Star selections and MVP votes, he felt like he had done enough to close the book on that narrative.

With this in mind, I have a little more sympathy for Sandoval leaving after 2014. At the time, I was confused and upset as any. I remember my grandpa calling me after Pablo Sandoval signed with the Red Sox in November of 2014 for 5-years/$95 million, marveling at how little sense it made, especially since San Francisco reportedly made a very similar offer. “I just don’t get it, Steven,” he said, again and again, and I commiserated. I was living north of Boston at the time and had my fill of the local sports radio to know they’d be brutal. He was beloved in San Francisco and in Boston, he was a touted signing in a tough market with zero goodwill to cushion him. That offseason was full of long, ridiculous, and often cruel on-air “discussions” about his fluctuating weight. Many wanted him to fail, setting him up to knock him down with outdated preseason expectations to hit .300 and slug 20+ homers even though he hadn’t done so since 2011.

Of course, it all went terribly wrong. Sandoval’s belt broke swinging over an R.A. Dickey knuckleball during an at-bat in April and his time with the Red Sox never mended. In 126 games, Sandoval hit .242/.295/.366 — all career lows by a mile. He only played in 3 games in 2016 due to injury and was released after 32 in 2017 with a .622 OPS.

Boston was thought to be greener grass, but it ended up being the wilderness. He’s since said that the decision to leave was a mistake, but one that he was “happy he went through it.” Sandoval’s foray East is what makes this a classic story—the return was a prodigal, one in which both son and father are humbled by the return.

After re-debuting with San Francisco in August 2017 there was a deeper understanding of what the player meant to the city and the city meant to the player. It had nothing to do with performance or need—it was an opportunity to kill the fattened calf and celebrate Sandoval for who he was, not who he could potentially be.

He’d make 200 appearances over the 2018-2019 seasons in support of newly acquired Evan Longoria at third and Brandon Belt at first. He hit 14 home runs in ‘19—his most since 2013—and earned a .507 slugging-percentage in 296 plate appearances while leading the Majors with 18 hits as a pinch hitter.

It was not the same Sandoval with the same consequential club role, but nobody cared. Listen to the home crowd on these highlight clips. The snare of a line drive, or double in the gap with runners on base—the excitement boiled over at AT&T when Sandoval had his say in a game.

My favorite example of this is not when Sandoval had a bat in his hands, or worked the infield corners, but when he took the mound.

Sandoval made two appearances as a pitcher in his career, both came during his second stint with the Giants: once in 2018 against the Dodgers, and once in 2019 against the Reds. He faced the minimum through those two innings, allowing just one baserunner in his career before promptly erasing him with a double play in Cincinnati. At the time in 2019, he was only the second player in MLB history other than Christy Matthewson to hit a home run, steal a base and pitch a scoreless inning in the same game (Shohei Ohtani has since achieved this feat approximately one million times). Tack this on with his 3-homer World Series game that put him in the ranks of Ruth, Jackson and Pujols—Sandoval might not be a Hall of Famer, but he sure does get mentioned along with a lot of them.

When he took the mound in April 2018 for his pitching debut, the Giants were getting treated to a very on-brand walloping of the reigning National League Champion Dodgers. 15-6 in the 9th, the game was over, the stadium emptying, but when Sandoval took the mound, people perked up and paid attention. Players on both benches stepped to the dugout rails. Physique, career choices—Sandoval was an easy target for the myopic, but everyone in the league knew about his athleticism and how he was always good for a surprise with a baseball in his hands.

Sandoval retired Max Muncy, Yasmani Grandal and Chris Taylor in 11 pitches and less than 3 minutes.

Muncy rolled an 84 MPH fastball to second for the first out. Ty Blach smirked. Kensley Jansen laughed. The crowd got vocal. First pitch to Grandal, Sandoval delivered a perfect looping curve that painted the outside corner. Then after two missed breaking balls, a knee-high fastball froze the catcher for a called strike-two. Sandoval was actually pitching, working the corners, thinking about pace, dictating rhythm. A high-80s fastball low-and-away baited a slap swing from the Dodgers catcher for an easy groundout to short. The crowd got buzzy when Sandoval poured in another fastball for a called strike one to Taylor. It erupted when Taylor swung through the following curve. In defensive mode, Taylor just barely fouled off a second curveball before grounding the next fastball to short for the final out.

The last shot on the broadcast of the Dodgers bench is priceless. Sandoval is smiling, asking for the ball as he strides off the field as applause fills the stadium, and the LA bench can only watch. They just trounced their division rivals, but the Giants cruised off the field as victors (San Francisco would go onto win the night-game of the doubleheader as well as the following game on Sunday). A position player pitching is always a vibe, but when it’s done well, when it’s Pablo Sandoval, after all that he’s done on the diamond, it’s something different.

Now Sandoval is back…again.

Nearly four years have passed since he last wore a Giants jersey, and it’s been more than twenty years since San Francisco scouts first saw him play in Venezuela. Decades have passed, franchises have been altered, dynasties built and dismantled as he’s taught himself to throw right-handed, move out from behind the plate, field the infield corners, and sling a curveball. He’s played professionally in three different countries and hit a 6-run home run. Those who stayed in the organization have all left while Sandoval keeps coming back—and this time with even more perspective.

So what can he do for the 2024 Giants? I’m not sure, but I’m excited to see him at it again for old time’s sake…and I can’t wait to see him again in another four years.