Giants Star Willy Adames Reminds Everyone of His Ceiling During Win Over Dodgers

There was a lot of excitement this past offseason when the San Francisco Giants landed Willy Adames in free agency.

Finally signing a coveted star player that other teams around the league were interested in acquiring, adding someone of his talent to this roster was being framed as the move that would allow the Giants to truly compete in the National League.

Unfortunately, the success of San Francisco in the first half of this year has largely been in spite of the star slugger.

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It has not been a pretty beginning to Adames' tenure in the Bay Area, and many were beginning to worry that Buster Posey's first notable signing was going to be a flop.

Sitting with a .222/.310/.365 slash line and just 11 homers and 45 RBI to his name entering play on Friday, the fact he received the most lucrative contract in franchise history that pays him $26 million per season made his performance all the more frustrating.

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But Adames delivered in a major way on Friday.

With the Giants falling behind in the NL West division race, he was the catalyst in their series opening victory over their archrival Los Angeles Dodgers, hitting a second-inning solo homer to center field that gave San Francisco a one-run lead before producing a two-run RBI triple in the bottom of the fifth to put them up 7-2.

This performance also reminded everyone who might have forgotten -- or who didn't believe -- what his ceiling can be.

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Adames has been a big time performer throughout his career, hitting 20-plus home runs in four straight years where two of those also went over the 30-homer mark.

He has a plethora of playoff experience, too, going on a deep run with the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series in 2020 before being a driver of the Milwaukee Brewers getting into the postseason in 2021, 2023 and 2024.

Adames still has a long way to go if he's going to live up to his lucrative contract, but delivering in moments against the Dodgers like he did on Friday will go a long way towards ingratiating himself with the fanbase while he still searches for long-term answers at the plate.

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