Giants' LaMonte Wade Jr. has become late-inning hero

SAN DIEGO — A week before the Giants had pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Scottsdale, the club traded reliever Shaun Anderson to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for little-known left-handed hitting outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr.

Wade had spent parts of two seasons with the Twins, hitting .211 with two home runs in 42 major league games before joining a Giants organization that was in search of outfield depth. The Wade trade certainly wasn't grounds for a press conference, but it was a transaction considered so minor the Giants didn't bother holding a conference call to explain the move.

Nearly eight months later, Wade Jr. has played fewer than 100 games in a Giants uniform and is such a popular figure that he's already had his own T-shirt giveaway at Oracle Park.

With a go-ahead ninth-inning RBI single on Tuesday against Padres closer Mark Melancon, Wade lifted the Giants to a at Petco Park that came as a surprise to no one who has watched the team and its most frequent late-game hero play this season.

"He's been so big in those situations," manager Gabe Kapler said postgame. "He got a ball he was able to fight off and kept us alive."

The game-winning hit marked the fifth time since the All-Star break Wade has either tied a game or given the Giants the lead in the ninth inning on the road as he now owns an extraordinary résumé that's been compiled in a two-month span. His ninth-inning body of work has earned him the nickname "Late-Night LaMonte" in the Giants' clubhouse and "LaNinth" Wade from Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow, which is all the more remarkable considering the organization traded a reliever who has since been designated for assignment by three different teams to acquire Wade.

"Late-Night LaMonte, that's what everybody has been calling him," starter Kevin Gausman said Tuesday. "It seems like he always comes up in a big situation and has a good quality at-bat, puts the ball in play and obviously has been a huge part of what we've done this year."

Wade began the season in the minors at Triple-A Sacramento, but didn't take long to author his first signature moment in a Giants uniform as he gave San Francisco a 6-5 10th-inning lead with an RBI single against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen on May 28.

The go-ahead hit marked Wade's first against the Dodgers and came immediately after former Giants outfielder Mike Tauchman robbed Albert Pujols of a potential walk-off home run to end the bottom of the ninth. The Giants had lost four straight against Los Angeles to open the season, but Wade's hit put his team ahead for good in an 8-5 victory that's widely considered one of the turning points of 2021 for the club.

After endearing himself to fans by showcasing previously unseen power leading into the All-Star break, Wade began to build his ninth-inning résumé on July 22 when he drilled a go-ahead, two-run single off Jansen to cap a four-run ninth inning of a 5-3 Giants win over the Dodgers.

Wade's next victim was the Diamondbacks and reliever Tyler Clippard, who had the Giants down to their final strike on Aug. 5 when Wade yanked the eighth pitch of an at-bat into right field for a game-tying single in an eventual 5-4, 10-inning Giants win.

Fewer than three weeks later, Wade came off the bench on Aug. 21 in Oakland against the A's and followed a Brandon Belt walk by crushing a go-ahead, two-run home run over the right field wall at the Coliseum to power the Giants to a 6-5 win.

The next time the Giants went on the road, Wade salvaged the club's series finale against the Rockies on Sept. 8 by delivering a two-strike single into right field off reliever Carlos Estevez to turn a 4-3 Giants deficit into a 5-4 lead in an eventual 7-4 victory.

The Giants began their final road trip of the season Tuesday at Petco Park and after Brandon Belt and Buster Posey reached on softly-hit singles, Wade lofted a 64.8 mile-per-hour cue shot over the head of shortstop Fernando Tatís Jr. to score Belt from second in San Francisco's 98th win of the season.

"He's kind of turned into Mr. Ninth Inning," Tyler Rogers, who picked up the save on Tuesday, said.

Wade's ninth-inning numbers now look like those of a skilled video game hitter playing on "Rookie" mode as he's 12-for-19 with 11 RBIs and a 1.597 OPS. The stats put Wade in a class of his own, but the way he looks at it, maybe all of these ninth-inning heroics wouldn't be so necessary if he was a better hitter early in games.

"I would much rather have these at-bats early in the game or throughout the game," Wade said postgame. "But I guess it's not a bad thing that they come late."

Not a bad thing at all for the unlikely catalyst of an unlikely first-place club.