Post-deadline Giants take stock, along with a deep breath: ‘This is our chance’

ARLINGTON, Texas — The most emotionally fraught phone call placed as a result of the trade deadline probably wasn’t between rival general managers. It might have been from an eight-year minor-league veteran to his sister in the Dominican Republic.

Eddys Leonard wanted to tell his parents he’d finally received a promotion to the big leagues.

“But I don’t want them to be crazy or have something like an attack,” Leonard said. “I told my sister, ‘Go to mom’s house and then we’re gonna see how to tell them.’”

The San Francisco Giants traded six players off their major-league roster Monday without receiving an active big leaguer in return. But they summoned only five call-ups from Triple-A Sacramento to the clubhouse for Monday’s series opener against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field. They also found themselves without a right-handed-hitting outfielder after they dealt Heliot Ramos to the New York Yankees.

So Leonard, a 25-year-old utility player who opted out of his Triple-A contract with the Milwaukee Brewers in July, got the call he’d been hoping to receive ever since he signed as a teenager. It came just 11 days after he joined the Giants on a minor-league contract. He’d just returned from a trip to the store Monday and was relaxing in his Airbnb in Sacramento when Triple-A manager Dave Brundage told him to pack up for a flight to Dallas.

“I was like, I was crying,” said Leonard, who started in left field Tuesday night. “I’m not gonna be lying. I was crying because I was waiting for this moment a long time.”

It was easy to look at the Giants’ lineup Tuesday and crack a joke. Nobody could’ve predicted a starting nine that included Leonard, Buddy Kennedy, Osleivis Basabe, Grant McCray, Christian Koss and Daniel Susac with Blade Tidwell on the mound. But Leonard provided a reminder: Seasons that go way off script can create life-changing moments, too. And for everyone else who didn’t make their major-league debut Tuesday, it was amazing how much better you feel after taking a deep, relaxing breath.

With the frenzy and uncertainty of the trade deadline behind them, the Giants who remained were either happy to be there or at least happy to be done with guessing. There was an unmistakable lightness in the pregame visiting clubhouse and plenty of smiles as Koss and Basabe staged an intense ping-pong match.

“It feels like we’re playing for the San Francisco River Kitties right now,” rookie first baseman Bryce Eldridge said. “The boys are having fun. But we had a talk today with a bunch of the young guys, kind of reiterating this is our chance to take advantage of this opportunity for us, but also, try and emphasize that this season we’ve had has been unacceptable for this organization’s standards and for all of our standards.

“We’re trying to win, and especially the young guys, we want to be here for a while. So it’s exciting, but also bittersweet.”

Eldridge was not among the youth movement in Tuesday’s lineup. The talented 21-year-old has been dealing with a bruised and swollen left thumb from getting jammed at the plate, and he received a day off to let it calm down.

“I was actually supposed to tell you guys they were saving me for a late-game pinch running opportunity,” Eldridge told reporters. “I forgot about that, but there you go.”

A late-game at-bat worked out better for Eldridge, who came off the bench in the ninth for a left-on-left matchup with Rangers closer Jacob Latz and lined a tying, two-run single. Two innings earlier, Basabe had erased another two-run deficit. He kept up his Basabe Ruth run, cranking his third home run in his five games in a Giants uniform.

The Giants lost 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth when Jake Burger hit a leadoff double against right-hander Dylan Smith, and with two outs, right fielder Jung Hoo Lee got turned around on Ezequiel Duran’s very catchable walk-off double. Lee also couldn’t make a play on Duran’s two-run double in the eighth.

As a result, Smith received the unfortunate distinction of being on the mound for a walk-off loss in his fourth ballpark this season. He also lost games at Colorado, Seattle, and earlier on this trip, in San Diego.

Giants manager Tony Vitello said the two late-inning comebacks “speaks to the effort. Not interested in consolation prizes or bronze medals or anything like that. But I think the whole game, the effort was there out of everybody — the younger guys with their energy, but also I think the older guys have done a good job of leading.”

In other ballparks, the energy creates itself. Former Giant Luis Arraez received a standing ovation in his first at-bat in Philadelphia and screamed in the direction of his new home dugout after hitting an emotionally charged RBI single. Ramos charmed New York reporters and batted cleanup at Yankee Stadium in a 2-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Other contending teams welcomed upgrades and key players for the pennant stretch.

Willy Adames, Rafael Devers and Lee welcomed a different sort of new teammates. Vitello said he made sure the veterans knew they’d be relied upon to shepherd the rest of the group.

“(Adames) had great advice to relay to them: Just make sure you play the game the right way,” Vitello said before the game. “And I don’t think that’s any one clear definition, but everybody knows what it looks like. And then just to enjoy every day. And I told those guys, it’s kind of become, with Chappie’s injury, Raffy and Willy’s team more now than ever.”

It might stay that way for the rest of the season. Matt Chapman underwent an MRI that confirmed a core muscle injury, and he’ll travel to Philadelphia next week to see Dr. William Meyers for an evaluation. Meyers is considered a specialist at sports hernia repairs, and Vitello acknowledged surgery was a possibility for Chapman.

With an average return-to-play time of six weeks, surgery would force Chapman to miss most if not all of the rest of the season. His rehab work from an abdominal strain ramped up to include everything except strenuous running, which remained uncomfortable. At this point, with the Giants out of contention and four years/$100 million remaining on his contract, there’s little incentive for Chapman to take the rehab route if surgery can address the issue.

Right-hander Trevor McDonald will be out the rest of this season and likely all of next year, too. He’s set to undergo Tommy John surgery to reconstruct a right elbow ligament Wednesday morning. When the game ended, McDonald was just beginning his presurgery fasting period.

The Giants hope to have other players back from the injured list soon. Victor Bericoto, who is poised to inherit Ramos’s outfield role, begins a rehab assignment for Sacramento on Wednesday. Jonah Cox is playing for the River Cats again after missing more than a month with an oblique injury and could return once the Giants have a regular spot for him.

Then there’s the potential prize of the Giants’ trade-deadline haul, former Boston Red Sox top prospect Marcelo Mayer, who will report to San Francisco on Wednesday to be reevaluated. Mayer was just beginning his hitting progression after missing time with an ulnar stress reaction. There’s every hope among Giants officials he will recover soon and get meaningful playing time at second base.

Then there’s Leonard, who was 0-for-2 with a strikeout in his debut before getting lifted for a pinch hitter. In eight games at Sacramento, he collected just four hits. All of them were home runs.

“A lot of things are going through my head right now,” Leonard said before the game. “It’s like a dream as a kid, when we start playing baseball as a young guy. That’s the mindset for everybody: to play in the big league. So right now, I’m just happy to be here.”