LaMonte Wade Jr. never stopped thinking about that season-ending at-bat vs. Max Scherzer

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The ball hooked, hooked and hooked some more. Ten, maybe 20 feet further toward the foul pole, and LaMonte Wade Jr. would have only added to his legend of late-game heroics, propelling the Giants to the NLCS with a walk-off win in Game 5 against the Dodgers. But the ball off Wade’s bat flew just far enough foul to allow Max Scherzer one more pitch.

With San Francisco trailing 2-1 and Kris Bryant on first base, Scherzer fired a 2-2 fastball high and outside. Wade left the bat on his shoulder, and home plate umpire Doug Eddings rung him up. One batter later, the Giants’ magical season had come to an abrupt end against the division rival they outraced for the NL West title.

“Honestly, when I first got home, all I could think about for those first two weeks was that Scherzer at-bat,” Wade said Saturday afternoon, after launching a homer and ripping a triple in his first two at-bats of spring training, in an 8-5 win over the Rockies, the Giants’ first victory of Cactus League play.

The more controversial call came the batter after Wade, when Wilmer Flores offered a sheepish check swing but was called for strike three, anyway. Wade, though, has been simmering in the memories of his last at-bat for five months now.

It took all of one pitch Saturday afternoon to show that he’d put it behind him — or, better yet, was using last year’s failure as fuel for this season.

Leading off the top of the first inning, Wade swung at the first pitch from Rockies starter Frank Duncan and ripped it down the right field line. He raced into second base, and an errant throw allowed him to jog to third, too.

Wade was back up at the plate already the following inning and sent a solo shot on to the grass berm beyond the wall in right field, the Giants’ second home run of spring training after non-roster invitee Wyatt Mathisen delivered a three-run shot two batters prior.

This time, Wade’s homer sailed well clear of the foul pole, over the 390′ sign in right-center field. He left the umpire no opportunity to take fate out of his own hands.

“I lost a lot of sleep over that,” Wade said of the way his season ended against Scherzer. “But it also helped motivate me through the offseason and make these cues and get better and improve myself. That at-bat, I grew from it, I learned from it. I look forward to that at-bat this year.”

Notable

• The ball was flying Saturday afternoon in the warm Arizona air at Salt River Fields in the Giants’ first day game of the spring. Nobody benefitted more than the Giants lineup that had been held hitless for seven innings the night prior. Beyond Wade’s 2-for-2 showing, center fielder Steven Duggar slapped a line drive home run to the deepest part of the ballpark in left-center field and unleashed a laser beam from center to nail a Rockies runner going first to third. Catching prospect Ricardo Genoves added a fourth long ball with a solo shot in the fifth inning.