SAN FRANCISCO -- For nearly a week, Bruce Bochy joked about a special kind of responsibility he felt. Bochy knew the Garcia family had flown across the country to watch Aramis make his big-league debut, but the starting job behind the plate belongs to Nick Hundley right now, and Bochy stuck to that plan through four games.
After a win over the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, he mentioned again that he needed to get his rookie catcher into a game while his family was here from Florida. Told that the Garcias planned to stay through the weekend, the manager smiled. On Friday, Bochy finally penned the 25-year-old into his lineup.
The Garcias waited around until Aramis got his shot, and it was well worth it. On Friday, in the eighth inning of a 7-0 win over the Mets, the rookie picked up his first hit in his third at-bat. He hit a homer to deep left.
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Garcia's father, Jose Aramis, started jumping up and down, high-fiving strangers. His mother, Mariam, broke down and started crying as her son rounded the bases. Aramis caught a glimpse of his family celebrating on the center field scoreboard as he took his gear off in the dugout.
"It's everything," he said. "I'm here because of them. Seeing their reactions was awesome. My dad reacted just how I thought he would. To see the rest of my family in tears, it was emotional."
Garcia shared the spotlight with another making his debut. Chris Shaw's promotion was so abrupt that his parents were still on their way from the Boston area when he took the field, but he made his mark, too. Shaw drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the seventh.
"It's a great way to have their debuts," Bochy said. "They've got to feel they can play up here. Both of them did a nice job. They were a shot in the arm."
San Francisco Giants
Early on, it looked like neither would have much to celebrate. For much of this night, the only rookie finding success was Andrew Suarez, who threw seven shutout innings while battling migraines.
Shaw’s first two at-bats were rough, and brought a reminder of an issue that has plagued him in the minors. He struck out 132 times last season and was at 144 at the time of his promotion, and Zack Wheeler put him away on six pitches the first two times up. In the second inning, Shaw swung through a 97 mph fastball to end his first at-bat in the majors. Two innings later, he went down on a 96 mph fastball.
In the seventh, Wheeler tried to go back to that well. He got ahead 0-1 and catcher Devin Mesoraco called for a fastball underneath Shaw’s hands. Wheeler missed, though, and when the 98 mph pitch dropped a bit down and in, Shaw hit a high fly ball to center field. It was deep enough to bring Brandon Belt racing in from third.
"Your job is to find a way to get him in," Shaw said. "Based on my first two at-bats, I knew they were planning to go up. I just said start (your swing) early and get on top of something."
Shaw was pulled for a defensive replacement in the eighth. Garcia, of course, went the distance. His first career start came with a familiar face 60 feet away. Garcia caught Suarez in summer ball when the two were teenagers in Miami and they reunited as professionals. When Suarez was drafted, he got a congratulatory text from Garcia, and they were a battery with High-A San Jose.
Garcia has come a long way as a defensive catcher, and he helped guide Suarez through seven. In the eighth, he grabbed the spotlight. Garcia led off the inning and got a 2-1 fastball up and in from Robert Gsellman. He smashed it a dozen rows deep in the left field bleachers, wiping away memories of two earlier strikeouts.
"The way my first two at-bats were going, I was just hoping to put something in play," he said. "That was incredible. That was an incredible moment."
The Giants turned this one into a boat race from there, and Garcia made it up a second time in the inning, dropping an RBI single into right-center. Ten minutes later, he was shaking hands with Ty Blach after the final pitch of the game. As he walked up the dugout steps and into the clubhouse, the younger Aramis saw the original. They shared an emotional moment.
"You just dream of getting here," Garcia said. "You want to do well and make your family proud. Getting the shutout and two hits, it was special."