Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval

Every great Giants team has a guy the whole city just adores, and for the even year run that guy was a round, switch hitting third baseman who swung at everything and somehow hit most of it. Pablo Sandoval had panda hats bouncing all over the ballpark, and in October he turned into one of the most dangerous hitters on the planet.

He was born August 11, 1986, in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and grew up idolizing Omar Vizquel and Andres Galarraga. He was born left handed, but he wanted to play shortstop like Vizquel, so at nine he taught himself to throw right handed. A Texas Rangers scout once promised to come sign him and never showed up. Two weeks later Ciro Villalobos of the Giants offered him a contract in 2002, and that was that.

He came up through the minors as a catcher, a first baseman and a third baseman, and in 2008 he hit .350 with 20 homers across San Jose and Connecticut. The Giants called him up in August and he hit .345 in 41 games. Barry Zito gave him the nickname Kung Fu Panda, after the movie, and that September he hurdled the tag of Dodgers catcher Danny Ardoin to score a run.

In 2009 he took over third base and hit .330, second in the National League, with 25 homers and 90 RBIs and 189 hits, a Giants record for a switch hitter. He finished seventh in the MVP vote. On July 30, the 50th anniversary of Willie McCovey's debut, with McCovey in the ballpark, Pablo hit his first homer into McCovey Cove. His approach, by his own description, was "See ball, swing."

Then the slump. He hit .268 in 2010, his weight became a running story, and in October he lost his job at third to Juan Uribe, getting only three at bats in the World Series. He got his ring anyway, and that winter the Giants launched what everybody called Operation Panda. He dropped more than 30 pounds and came back in 2011 hitting .315 with 23 homers, made his first All Star team, doubled in a run in the game, and hit for the cycle at Coors Field in September.

In 2012 he opened the year with a 20 game hitting streak, a franchise record to start a season, broke the hamate bone in his other wrist, and still got voted in as the NL's starting third baseman for the All Star Game. In Kansas City he hit a bases loaded triple off Justin Verlander, the first in All Star Game history. Three months later he did a lot worse to Verlander.

Game 1 of the 2012 World Series: three homers in his first three trips to the plate, two off Verlander. Only Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and Albert Pujols had ever hit three in a Series game. He hit .500 in the sweep of Detroit and was named World Series MVP, won the Babe Ruth Award for the postseason, and set a Giants record with 24 postseason hits. A few months later he led Magallanes to its first Venezuelan title since 2002 and was MVP of that postseason too.

He hit three homers in a regular season game against the Padres in September 2013, joining a short list of players with three homer games in both the regular season and the postseason. In 2014 he played 157 games, and in October he was everywhere: a ninth inning double to tie Game 2 of the NLDS in Washington, which the Giants won in 18 innings, a National League record postseason hitting streak, a two run single to break a tie in Game 4 of the World Series while fighting the flu, and 26 hits in all, a single postseason record at the time. He caught the final out of Game 7.

Then he left. Boston gave him five years and $90 million, and it went badly from the start. He hit .245 in 2015, hurt his shoulder in 2016, and the Red Sox released him in July 2017. The Giants brought him right back, first on a minor league deal, and he turned into a beloved bench piece. He pitched a perfect ninth inning against the Dodgers in 2018, led the majors with 18 pinch hits in 2019, and came off the injured list two days before Tommy John surgery to make one last appearance for Bruce Bochy.

The Giants released him in September 2020, and he finished his big league career with Atlanta, which gave him a fourth ring after the Braves won the 2021 World Series. He kept playing for years after that, in Mexico, in independent ball with the Staten Island FerryHawks, and in winter ball back home. He was a guest instructor at Giants camp in the spring of 2026, and on August 8, 2026, his plaque went up on the Wall of Fame next to Buster Posey's.

Regular season Pablo was a good hitter. October Pablo was a different animal. In 42 postseason games he hit .338 with 53 hits, and with the Giants he did even better. In 2012 he hit .364 that postseason with six homers and a Giants record 24 hits. In 2014 he collected 26 more, the most anyone had ever had in one October.

The three homer night against Detroit is the headline, and it should be. The first one came on a high 95 mile an hour pitch on an 0 and 2 count from Justin Verlander, the best pitcher in baseball at the time, the second came on the very next pitch after a mound visit, and the third came off Al Alburquerque. Nobody had ever homered in his first three Series plate appearances of a game like that.

But I love the 2014 stuff just as much. The ninth inning double off Drew Storen to tie a game the Giants had to have in Washington. The go ahead single with the flu in Game 4. And then the last thing that happened in that whole Series, Salvador Perez's pop up drifting into foul ground and down into Pablo's glove.