ST. LOUIS -- Bryce Eldridge knew immediately.
The ball left his bat at 112.7 mph Tuesday night, traveled a Statcast-projected 461 feet into the right-center-field seats at Busch Stadium and gave the Giants a first-inning lead in an eventual 10-3 win over the Cardinals.
“I knew immediately that was the best one I’ve caught this year,” Eldridge said.
He was right. It was the longest home run of Eldridge’s young Major League career, the longest homer at Busch Stadium this season and the Giants’ longest away from Coors Field. It was also San Francisco’s hardest-hit homer of the year.
But when Eldridge was asked afterward about another play -- a far less dramatic one in the ninth inning -- he lit up just as much.
The 6-foot-7 first baseman had leaped to snag a difficult grounder hit by Victor Scott II to end the game. For a player whose bat has always generated the attention, that play represented something else entirely.
“Oh yeah,” Eldridge said when asked if it felt almost as good as the homer. “Making a good play on defense -- I have a lot of pride in it and in all the work that I put in.”
That pride is increasingly showing up.
Eldridge entered professional baseball with questions about where exactly he would play. He has heard the criticism of his defense throughout his rise through the Giants’ system. Rather than accept being defined by his bat, the 21-year-old said he took those questions “very personally.”
So he went to work.
A lot of it has come alongside Giants infield coach Ron Washington, who began working extensively with Eldridge during Spring Training and has watched the young first baseman grow increasingly comfortable as the season has progressed.
“He committed to doing what it’s going to take to put him on the map,” Washington said. “Because our front office thinks he’s the future of the organization. And he has to play defense.”
Washington has drilled more than simply fielding ground balls. Eldridge has worked on his footwork, positioning, cutoffs and knowing when to trail runners toward second base -- the small responsibilities that turn someone standing at first into, as Washington put it, a first baseman.
“He looks natural now,” Washington said. “He looks like he’s a first baseman.”
For Eldridge, the biggest difference has been his feet.
“I think my footwork has kind of taken over,” Eldridge said. “That cleans up my glove, cleans up everything else.”
Washington was quick to redirect the credit.
“I can make him work all I want,” Washington said. “But if he’s not applying what we’re doing and he’s not learning what we’re doing, it don’t matter. … The results of what you see goes to Bryce Eldridge.”
The defensive development has arrived while Eldridge is simultaneously playing some of his best offensive baseball. After going 2-for-4 with three RBIs Tuesday, he was batting .340/.424/.557 with 28 RBIs over his past 28 games entering Wednesday. From Aug. 14 entering Wednesday, those 28 RBIs rank third in the Majors.
Manager Tony Vitello sees a hitter who has become more comfortable against left-handed pitching, with two strikes and in big situations.
“I think right now we just see him on an incline,” Vitello said.
Part of that development has come from the player whose injury opened everyday opportunities for Eldridge at first base.
Rafael Devers noticed Eldridge searching for answers during an earlier offensive funk. Eldridge was studying video and tinkering with his swing when the veteran offered a simpler suggestion: stop trying to fix the swing, find some rhythm and stay toward left-center field.
Eldridge describes the feeling Devers wanted him to find as “dancing with the pitcher.”
“I was trying a lot of things to change something in my swing because I felt uncomfortable,” Eldridge said, “instead of just having some rhythm, being athletic in the box. So that helped me a lot.”
Vitello has watched Devers’ influence expand beyond Eldridge. As Devers became more comfortable with San Francisco, Vitello said he increasingly embraced being the veteran voice for a young roster -- putting an arm around teammates, keeping things loose and offering advice before and even during games.
“He was that guy when he was younger with Boston,” Vitello said. “He was young at heart, super talented and was blessed to be around some of the best veteran names in the history of baseball. And I think he started to realize that the tables have turned, and now he’s that guy.”
Devers’ season is now over following surgery Tuesday to repair a core muscle injury. That leaves Eldridge with the runway Vitello wants him to have at first base down the stretch.
There will be more ground balls with Washington, more opportunities to test everything they have worked on and, almost certainly, more tape-measure swings.
But Washington’s goal isn’t to develop a slugger who can survive defensively. It’s to develop a complete baseball player.
“If he was just a DH, you call that incomplete,” Washington said. “Now he gets a chance, even if he don’t hit that 460-foot home run, to do something to help the team.”
For Eldridge, that’s the most important point.