Coming into Tuesday night's game, Austin Wynns had 354 big league plate appearances without hitting a triple.
He has just one triple in more than 2,000 minor league plate appearances, and even if you go back to his college days, when the catcher's legs were much fresher, he notched just a couple of them at Fresno State. This season, at the age of 31, Wynns ranks in the bottom 10 percent of big leaguers in sprint speed.
Wynns has brought a lot of positive traits to the Giants, but speed is not one of them. Still, as Wynns prepared for his fourth at-bat on Tuesday night in Atlanta, teammates jokingly urged him to think about putting one in the gap and letting loose.
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Wynns had hit a big three-run homer in his first at-bat, an RBI double the next time up and a single the third time. He was a triple from the cycle and the dugout knew it.
"People were saying, 'Hey, make sure you drink some water, you've got to leg one out this time. Get it in the gap,'" Wynns said after the game. "I was like, alright, I'll do what I can."
There would be no shifting into the next gear. Wynns grounded out to third his final time up, meaning Pablo Sandoval in 2011 is still the last Giant to hit for the cycle. But none of that mattered as Wynns stood out at the mound at Truist Park and greeted teammates in the handshake line. The Giants had won 12-10, and Wynns, picked up earlier this month because of Joey Bart's ongoing struggles, was right in the middle of it all.
In his 10th game with the team, Wynns had a career-high three hits and tied his high with four RBI. Most importantly, he kept the line moving, something he has proven to be pretty good at. Wynns has a .370 on-base percentage as a Giant and has struck out just four times in his 27 plate appearances.
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In year one of Life After Buster Posey, the Giants don't necessarily need great production from their catchers. The lineup isn't built to lean on them. But they do need them to turn the lineup over, occasionally moving runners along or getting on base for guys like Luis González, Mike Yastrzemski and Joc Pederson. Wynns has done that well.
"I just want to get on base," he said. "I want to get on for the big dogs because we have a nasty team. I just need to get on base."
By doing it three more times Tuesday, Wynns added a pair of runs on a night when the Giants needed just about all 12 of them. The Atlanta Braves hit four homers and kept coming and coming with their power-packed lineup, but the Giants had just enough big hits, something that has been a rarity in recent weeks.
As he spoke to reporters in Atlanta after the game, Gabe Kapler rattled off a list of Giants who came up with huge at-bats. Wynns. Pederson. Brandon Crawford, before he got hurt. González. Wilmer Flores. The list went on and on as the Giants reached base 19 times against a good pitching staff.
"I thought we did have quality at-bats up and down our lineup and throughout the game," Kapler said. "And obviously we needed every one of them."
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The final big hit came from Flores, who entered when Crawford got hurt and drove in two runs in the top of the ninth. Camilo Doval entered in the bottom of the inning and gave up a two-run homer. He later threw his glove down in anger after retiring Travis d'Arnaud, and Wynns, catching his seventh pitcher of the night, noticed. He walked out to chat with Doval and calm him down, and the Giants had their 38th win a few moments later.
Wynns was still catching his breath as he joined the "Giants Postgame Live" show after walking off the field, but he said he appreciates the way the Giants have welcomed him into the fold and treated him "like family." They did not expect to have to trade for a catcher in June, but they did, and it has worked out beautifully so far, as Wynns once again showed in Tuesday's wild win.
"It was a grudge match," he said of the game. "We were going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and it was a battle. I'm just glad we came out on top."