SF Giants: What Happens if Alex Wood Homers?

The DH will not be returning to the National League in 2021 and that has left one SF Giants lefty doing plenty of pontificating.

SF Giants starting pitcher Alex Wood has never hit a home run in his eight-year career but that has not stopped the 30-year-old from considering how he would celebrate the moment.

What happens if SF Giants lefty Alex Wood hits a home run?

Before we take a look at Wood’s potential home run celebration, let’s establish that when a pitcher hits a home run, it is one of the greatest spectacles in all of sports. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but when Bartolo Colon hit a homer off of James Sheilds remains in 2016, it instantly became a classic moment.

If Wood is lucky enough to swat a baseball over the fence, he has a celebration already planned:

Of course, this all might be hypothetical. After all, Wood has slashed .097/.130/.105 (-34 OPS) with two doubles and 12 RBI in 276 career plate appearances, so a home run is definitely a tall order.

This is a far cry from the days when Madison Bumgarner would unload on a pitch. The longtime Giants starter regularly put on impressive batting practices and was used occasionally as a pinch hitter.

In 12 years with the Giants, Bumargner registered a .177/.228/.303 line (46 OPS) with 19 home runs and 62 RBI. In recent years, the Home Run Derby had grown stale and baseball has tinkered with improving the entertainment value.

One niche of baseball fandom suggested a Home Run Derby held exclusively by pitchers, which would have been a nice idea but it never gained any traction. It is easy envisioning Bumgarner being one of the top participants in this scenario, but we will never know.

More importantly, we now know what Alex Wood’s home run celebration looks like. If this was keeping you awake at night, you can sleep soundly knowing that he will drop the hammer with the help of his teammates.