SAN FRANCISCO -- A few minutes after his RBI double helped the Giants squeeze out a 2-1 win over a historically bad A's team, Mike Yastrzemski stood at his locker and talked about how he has tried this season to redefine the way he views success.
Yastrzemski entered the night with a batting average under .100 in July, but he feels that about two-thirds of his plate appearances have been good, and he has tried to take solace in the fact that eventually, all the line drives will find holes.
The Giants have taken a similar approach to roster building, and that in part explains what appears on the surface to be an extremely quick promotion of Marco Luciano, their highest-ranked hitting prospect since Brandon Belt more than a decade ago.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Luciano played just six games after a promotion to Triple-A, and his "1-for-4 with a homer and walk" line in a hitter-friendly environment on Tuesday night in Albuquerque didn't leap off the page, even if it would have been one of the best Giants performances of the last week had it happened at Oracle Park.
But the Giants didn't just see a homer. They saw three excellent plate appearances that ended with rockets coming off the 21-year-old's bat. They saw a young hitter who for weeks now has controlled the strike zone, allowing him to tap into some of the best raw power they've ever had in a prospect.
Luciano walked in his first plate appearance Tuesday, spitting on a 3-0 fastball that was an inch off the outer edge. Two innings later, he jumped on a hanging 1-1 curve, crushing his second homer in Triple-A. It was hit 110 mph, a mark that only six Giants homers have cleared this season.
From there, Luciano was hitless, but his grounder to first in the fifth inning came off the bat at 108.8 mph. His line drive to short with two outs in the ninth was hit 110.2 mph and proved to be his final at-bat before a promotion he's been waiting for his whole life.
San Francisco Giants
As the Giants watched their own big leaguers manage just four hits off an A's staff led by a pitcher with a 6.75 ERA, they decided it was time to shake up a lineup that has looked filled with tired bats over the last week. At the very least, Luciano should provide a jolt.
He hit two balls Tuesday night harder than any Giant has in the second half. He'll now join a roster that has just one player -- Joc Pederson -- with multiple batted balls at 110 mph or above all season. Luciano did that twice in four at-bats Tuesday.
Results matter too, of course, and Luciano is batting .305 over his last 32 games with an OPS nearing 1.000, eight homers and eight doubles, and team officials have consistently praised his improved approach at the plate.
Most importantly, Luciano has taken huge strides defensively. His nifty glove-flip over the weekend earned him a cameo on SportsCenter, but ever since he recovered from a back injury and joined Double-A Richmond, the Giants have seen more consistent defense at shortstop.
"He's gotten better than I thought he would have by this point," Flying Squirrels manager Dennis Pelfrey said a couple of weeks ago. "There's a lot more room to grow there. He's still not what you call a premium shortstop but I think there's a chance for him to get there. With the way that he works and his mentality and how he goes about his business, I think there's a real opportunity that he gets there soon."
In an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area a couple of days before Luciano was sent across the country to Sacramento, Pelfrey said it wouldn't surprise him at all if Luciano went on a tear and took the Patrick Bailey fast track from Richmond to San Francisco.
"He works, he's one of the best workers we have," he said. "He's a really good teammate and he's done everything we've asked."
Luciano said that day that he was keeping a close eye on his friends up in the big leagues, most notably Luis Matos, a fellow 21-year-old and member of the 2018 international signing class. He'll now join Matos, Bailey and other rookies in the big leagues, and he's expected to start at shortstop on Wednesday night, when the A's have a lefty on the mound.
Matos, Bailey and Casey Schmitt have all been up to stay since their promotions, although that could change this weekend. Schmitt and Brett Wisely have struggled at the plate, and if Brandon Crawford returns from the IL as expected on Friday, the Giants will option one of their rookie infielders back to Triple-A.
That might have happened next week anyway, as the front office has been actively searching for middle infield depth. For a few days, at least, they'll see if Luciano's long-awaited debut can fill that hole.