It’s been nearly two years since Atlanta clinched a World Series title with Luke Jackson as one of their core relievers out of the bullpen. Now with the SF Giants, Jackson talked about his tenure with the team upon his return. The right-hander finished the 2021 season, his last in Atlanta's bullpen, with an outstanding 1.98 ERA in 71 appearances and notched a 9.9 K/9. Once the fall classic rolled around, Jackson excelled by allowing nothing more than a single hit in 3.2 innings of work against the Houston Astros.
After spending five seasons with Atlanta, Jackson – now a prominent member of the SF Giants bullpen – spoke about his tenure with the team upon his return during the Giants road trip.
“Fans here are unmatched,” Jackson told Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “San Fran’s got some great fans, too, but no offense to San Fran, Atlanta’s a different beast when it comes to sports in general and being a hometown team."
During his Atlanta tenure, Jackson enjoyed popularity among fans and his Florida upbringing suggests that he may have had a favorable view of the franchise during his childhood as well. However, contrasting the two fanbases led to some displeasure among Giants fans.
It's worth taking the recent context of each franchise into account. Atlanta was first-place finishers in four of Jackson’s five seasons and made it to the National League Championship twice. It was also the first five years of a new ballpark in Cobb County and – aside from the 2021 season, in which they were second – the organization ranked in the middle of the pack for attendance among other NL clubs (averaging 2,503,900 from 2017-19, 2021).
The Giants, on the other hand, have performed marginally better during that time frame with an average of 2,711,770, despite having three seasons under .500.
As a World Series winner with the club, it’s easy to see why Jackson feels a certain attachment to Atlanta's fans. While it’s not a valid comparison because of the higher volume of success, the fans in Atlanta latched onto him as a fan favorite in a similar fashion as Giants fans when they heavily embraced their core bullpen arms during their glory seasons in the early 2010s.
Maybe had Luke Jackson been a part of the SF Giants during that duration, his perspective and views could be shifted. It goes the other way, too – if he had been on the Braves roster five years prior, they were grappling with a challenging rebuilding phase that transformed them into consistent underachievers from 2014 to 2017.
Timing is everything.
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