Luis Matos Becomes the Solution for the San Francisco Giants

Raise your hand if you picked Luis Matos to be the best player in the National League last week.

You’re lying.

Promoted on May 12 and relegated to pinch-running duties on Mother’s Day, Matos went on a hitting spree so remarkable on Monday, May 13, that he locked up NL Player of the Week nearly two days before the weekend was over.

In his first starts at Oracle Park since last September, Matos batted .385 (10-for-26) with three runs, three doubles, two home runs, 16 RBI, and a .731 slugging percentage across six games from May 13-19.

BoMel saw Luis Matos winning NL Player of the Week from a mile away ? pic.twitter.com/iBkXrxscw8

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 21, 2024

Over five days, he surpassed the 14 RBI it took him 76 games to accumulate last season. Those 16 RBI in a single calendar week? It immediately shoots him up the rankings fourth-most on the San Francisco Giants in 2024.

That’s not bad for a player who played in front of less than four thousand fans in Utah before his promotion. 

He became just the fourth player in Giants history with at least five RBI in back-to-back games. At 22 years and 111 days old, Matos became the youngest player in MLB history (RBI became an official stat in 1920) to accomplish the feat.

That's franchise-record holder Luis Matos, thank you very much pic.twitter.com/b4DM6c6DvN

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 18, 2024

Once more, Matos tied the franchise record with 11 RBI over a three-game series against Colorado, joining Jack Clark (1992) and Jeff Kent (1998).

Just In Time

San Francisco is in the midst of the worst injury spree in the Majors. Nine players went out in a span of 13 days from May 4-17, putting the club at one time with 13 players on the injured list.

Chief among those is the player with the highest overall contract remaining, Jung Hoo Lee. Signed out of the KBO following seven seasons as one of the best players Korea had ever produced, the Giants agreed to pay the career .340 hitter a whopping $113 million for the next six years.

The signing was viewed as a positive move for a franchise that needed recognizable names after being relegated to bridesmaid in the last several offseasons. Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, and Shohei Ohtani treated the Giants as pawns on their way to more preferred destinations.

Left in the wake of the Lee deal was the team’s top center-field prospect in Matos. San Francisco traded Mitch Haniger to free up some playing time for the likes of Matos and Heliot Ramos, but the largest free agent contract ever given to a position player by the Giants signaled more seasoning in the minors for the Venezuelan-born talent.

Then, three outfielders were injured in consecutive days. For Lee, who damaged his shoulder during a crash into the Oracle Park wall, season-ending surgery to repair the torn labrum was deemed the best possible option.

Jung Hoo Lee exited today's game after appearing to injure himself on a collision with the center field wall pic.twitter.com/ocXon6JI8F

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 12, 2024

Insert Matos. The rest is history.

The injection of life that Matos provided the lineup was even more valuable than his NL Player of the Week Award, the club’s first since 2018 when Brandon Belt was given the honor. (Matos was also the first outfielder to win for San Francisco since Hunter Pence in 2016.)

The Orange and Black scored 28 runs over the weekend during the three-game set for the first time at home since putting up 31 runs against the Milwaukee Brewers in 2014. Matos played a role in 12 of those runs.

San Francisco ended up sweeping the visiting Rockies, who entered on a seven-game win streak. For the first time since May 2, San Francisco pulled to within two games of .500.

Prospect Polish

Signed by Giants scout Edgar Fernández as an international free agent out of Venezuela for $725,000 in 2018, Matos was regarded for his baseball IQ even at 16. His father and uncle played professionally, and a pair of his cousins have reached the Majors in recent years: Luis Alexander Basabe (San Francisco, 2020) and Osleivis Basabe (Tampa Bay, 2023).

Matos made such a strong impression in the Dominican Summer League in 2019 at 17 that he was brought stateside to the Arizona Complex League by the end of the season. The pandemic wiped away all minor league games in 2020, but Matos received an invite to the Giants alternate site that year. 

In 2021, he made a name for himself as the Low-A-West MVP. He led the California League in hits (141), extra-base hits (51), doubles (35), total bases (223) and RBI (86). At that point, he was widely regarded as a top-100 prospect despite having just turned 20. 

Yet, pundits from around the game cooled on Matos by the end of 2022 as the 5’11” outfielder dealt with a left quad issue that limited him to 94 games. He batted .215 with a .629 OPS, mainly at High-A Eugene, and had to settle for the Defensive Player of the Year in the Arizona Fall League as his lone honor for the season.

LUIS MATOS SENDS ONE OUT OF HERE ? pic.twitter.com/ZPTXHutgEK

— Richmond Flying Squirrels (@GoSquirrels) May 14, 2023

He slashed .309/.399/.444 in Double-A in 2023 before advancing to Triple-A to produce even more substantial offensive numbers against opposing pitchers who were six years older, on average.

During his first taste of the Majors last season, Matos started with a similar flair as 2024. He scored ten runs during his first seven career games, the most ever in that span by a Giant, including their days in Manhattan. Speaking of California teams that originated in New York, Matos’ outpouring of runs was the most for a debuting player since Brooklyn’s Jim Gilliam in 1953 to score ten or more runs in their first seven career games without hitting a home run.

2024 Outlook

Matos should have a clear runway to playing time in center field with Lee out until 2025, especially considering his above-average defense. His home run robbery against the Los Angeles Dodgers was critical during the Giants’ 4-1 win on May 15.

Luis Matos makes an INCREDIBLE catch at the wall. pic.twitter.com/ksJls1lIlF

— MLB (@MLB) May 16, 2024

Matos not only tracked down the 405 ft blast from Teoscar Hernández, but he kept the momentum on the Giants’ side. He also survived the collision with the wall in a strange coincidence, given Lee’s less fortunate encounter only a few days before.

Matos has moved to the top of San Francisco’s lineup following his offensive explosion. Could manager Bob Melvin cool on Matos at some point? Not if he keeps contributing on both sides of the diamond.

San Francisco has shown a willingness to allow Mike Yastrzemski to patrol center field. Once Austin Slater returns off the injured list for a concussion, those two could eventually eat into Matos’ starts. However, it shouldn’t mean a trip back to Sacramento after everything he’s provided.

The Giants are still in a win-now mode. The entire organization isn’t exactly at the luxury of starting a player for development purposes.

The breakout from Matos should do wonders for giving everyone at 24 Willie Mays Plaza the confidence that his ceiling could be the best of their young talent and precisely what they need to salvage this season.

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