SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s a moment that will persist in the memory of San Francisco Giants fans. It’s a scene that has been recreated on everything from T-shirts to snow globes. There was so much baptismal joy, so much sweet release, so much cleansing exhilaration when second baseman Marco Scutaro held out his arms, tipped back his head and embraced the sudden downpour that drenched the Giants when they were one out away from clinching the National League pennant in 2012.
On that night, in the rural outskirts of Scutaro’s hometown of San Felipe, Venezuela, the moment also inspired a 15-year-old who watched every one of those seven games.
“As soon as I saw Marco Scutaro in that series, wow,” Luis Arraez said. “I said, ‘I need to keep going. I need to sign with somebody. This is something I can do.’”
Scutaro hit .500 in that NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He was awarded NLCS MVP honors. The Giants needed to win three consecutive elimination games to prevail against the Cardinals, and Scutaro played in constant pain after a takeout slide from Matt Holliday wrenched his hip in Game 2. But he kept spraying hits to all fields, kept setting up rallies and cashing in baserunners. He stepped to the plate 30 times in that series. He struck out once.
And then, in completing the Giants’ four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, Scutaro lined the 10th-inning single that scored Ryan Theriot with the winning run.
Arraez and Scutaro hit from different sides of the plate. They have different swing mechanics. But they are so similar in their approach. Arraez, a left-handed hitter who signed a one-year, $12 million contract with the Giants, has won three batting titles because his bat path is so short and so direct that he can afford to wait longer to recognize pitch shapes. His contact skills would be an outlier in any era. In this current baseball landscape, with 100-mph middle relievers and bespoke pitch design and so much less shame in striking out, he is a true original.
But it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Arraez patterned his game or his hitting approach after his countryman. Scutaro meant so much more to Arraez than a hitting template.
He showed Arraez what was possible.
Arraez’s face lights up when he explains the connection: “We are from the same city.”
Maybe that doesn’t sound like such a big deal. Hundreds of players from Venezuela have reached the big leagues, and no small number have gained stardom, from a shortstop tree that branched out from Luis Aparicio to Dave Concepcion to Omar Vizquel to NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. to Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera to Cy Young Award winners like Johan Santana and Félix Hernández. There is no shortage of star players for a budding young baseball talent in Venezuela to idolize.
But San Felipe is the capital of Yaracuy, a rain-buffeted agricultural state known for growing citrus and tropical flowers, not baseball players. It is off the scouting and showcase circuit. It takes something extra for a player to stand out here, and if you are a singles-hitting teenage hopeful who isn’t blessed with blinding speed or prodigious power, you begin your baseball life with a two-strike count. You must fight to be noticed.
Only three major-league players have hailed from San Felipe and its surrounding area. Arraez and Scutaro are two of them. Former Pittsburgh Pirates closer Felipe Vázquez is the other.
When Scutaro was 14, he would wait at the bus station in San Felipe, ride for 90 bumpy kilometers to Barquisimeto, the nearest sizable city, then walk several miles to the baseball field just so he could play in a league against better competition. He had to beg for his place in a baseball academy, offering to work other jobs to cover his food and lodging, only to be left on the bench in games when scouts were in the stands. When he asked a Colorado Rockies scout if he could sign for free, he was turned down. He once posed as a friend who had been signed by the Oakland A’s, borrowing his uniform, so he could play in a showcase game. Scutaro was nearly 18 and traveling wherever he could to play in front of scouts when someone from the Cleveland Indians finally showed interest. He was offered $3,500. He couldn’t sign fast enough.
And now, with his 13-year major league career behind him, Scutaro, 50, is spending this week with the Giants as a spring training guest instructor. He is working alongside Arraez during infield drills at second base and watching him spray baseballs in batting practice. He is dispensing advice about Arraez’s participation in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, an event in which Scutaro represented Venezuela three times.
Mostly, Scutaro is deepening his relationship with someone he has admired for a long time. He knows better than anyone how much Arraez, someone from an underrepresented region with undervalued skills, had to overcome to get here.
“My brother, Piero, was the first one to tell me about him,” Scutaro said. “He said, ‘Hey, he’s from our area. He’s a really good hitter.’ I mean, he’s from a really, really small town. In Las Flores, there’s only one street. That’s it. My dad used to have a farm near there. So I know that place.
“When I see Arraez, I have to ask him: ‘Who taught you to hit? From that little town?’”
Luis Arraez was hitting .364 (4-for-11) in Cactus League play heading into Saturday. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Scutaro grew up the son of an Italian barber in San Felipe, a city of more than 200,000. To find where Arraez grew up, you must head out of town, past the airstrip, and down a one-lane road to the hamlet of Tacarte. Halfway there, the road splits a cluster of structures including a carnicería and a two-room schoolhouse. That’s Las Flores.
It was home to one of the world’s biggest Marco Scutaro fans.
“Oh, my mom,” Arraez said. “She watched Marco Scutaro when he played for Leones de Caracas (in winter ball). That was her player. They call him El Pulpo. I watched him play hard every day. He’s a humble guy, a lot of energy. And he was from so close, just a few minutes away.”
Arraez recalled that he was 5 or 6 years old when Scutaro, who had recently made his major-league debut with the New York Mets, returned to San Felipe in the offseason. Piero Scutaro was friendly with Arraez’s older brother and asked if they wanted to stop by and meet Marco. In an instant, they were riding their bikes up that one-lane road.
Before Arraez played his first organized game as an 8-year-old, he learned to hit by swinging at a ball that his father, Ernesto, hung from a mango tree. Arraez did everything else right-handed, so it surprised Ernesto when his son took left-handed swings. He was so coordinated and made so much contact that there was no reason to try to change him. They would practice for hours after Ernesto, a bus driver, finished his shift.
Arraez continued to show promise as a hitter and pitcher and was accepted at the Felix Olivo Academy in Valencia, which was more than a two-hour drive away. He competed on Venezuelan youth teams in international tournaments and once pitched seven innings in a victory over Brazil in a tournament game in Mexico. Several players on those international teams signed for six-figure bonuses. Arraez was not among them.
Arraez caught the eye of José León, a scouting coordinator for the Minnesota Twins, and received an invitation to their academy. After two months there, and with the Twins claiming they had no money in their budget left over to sign him, Arraez returned to Las Flores. He told his mother that he’d focus on his studies and maybe become an elementary school teacher. But León hadn’t forgotten about him and freed up some money. He was offered a $40,000 bonus. He couldn’t sign fast enough.
“When you grow up where we grew up, it was baseball or nothing else,” Scutaro said. “That’s why we didn’t take anything for granted. It’s a great opportunity to come here. And I think the Giants will be happy they are giving an opportunity to him. You watch, he’s going to have a great year. The Giants will love him, and he’ll stay here for a while. I really believe it.”
There wasn’t a bidding war for Arraez as a teenage hopeful. Even after those three consecutive batting titles in 2022-24, which he achieved with the Twins, the Miami Marlins and the San Diego Padres, there wasn’t much of a bidding war for his service this past winter. The Padres attempted to re-sign him, but the Giants were the only team that offered him the chance to reestablish himself as an everyday second baseman.
Arraez is refining his defense and picking up positioning tips from the man who also taught Scutaro as a young infielder with the Oakland A’s. Giants infield coach Ron Washington hasn’t missed a day of early work all spring. Neither has Arraez, who is attacking his work in camp like a rookie with something to prove. Giants manager Tony Vitello means no disrespect when he gushes about the “walk-on” energy that Arraez is bringing to the ballpark every day.
Luis Arraez is receiving fielding tips from Ron Washington, who worked with Marco Scutaro in Oakland. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
“I love him,” said Scutaro, who lives in the Miami area and often watches the Marlins on TV. “I saw him play in 2023 almost every day, and defensively, he’s way better than what people think. I don’t see any reason why he can’t play every day. Of all the things I really admire about him, the biggest is that he battles every at-bat. He doesn’t throw at-bats away. Watch his career. To do what he does in today’s game with people throwing 100, throwing any pitch in any count? It’s amazing.”
It’s even more amazing when you realize that Arraez couldn’t see straight most of last season. He was carted off the field and hospitalized with a concussion on April 20 in Houston after colliding at first base with Astros infielder Mauricio Dubón, then missed the Padres’ next six games. He didn’t say a word about any lingering symptoms after returning, and based on his performance, there was no reason to think he was anything but fully recovered. The .317 career hitter didn’t win another batting title, finishing with a .292 average, but he ended the year with 675 plate appearances and just 21 strikeouts, only two of which were called. It was the lowest strikeout rate by a qualified major leaguer since Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn in 1995.
All the while, he struggled to clear out the cobwebs. He said his vision didn’t clear up until December.
“I got a lot of dizziness,” Arraez said. “I feel great now, thanks to God. It’s not easy. You want to feel good. As soon as I go to hit and I see something move, I say, ‘OK, I’m dizzy.’”
With clear vision and perhaps a bit more batted-ball luck, Arraez appears primed to chase a fourth batting title this season, a feat that just 14 players (12 of whom are in the Hall of Fame) have accomplished in major-league history. Arraez also would tie Cabrera for the most batting titles by a hitter from Venezuela.
Scutaro said he would be the first to cheer the accomplishment.
“We both stay short and let the ball get deep, but I mean, c’mon,” Scutaro said. “He’s way ahead of me. Way, way ahead of me. He’s way better. It took me a long time to figure it out, and he’s been good for a while. He’s got more natural ability. He recognizes pitches so fast.”
“I think you need guys like that in a lineup. He makes everyone better. He takes long at-bats. He lets you see pitches. He has a lot of value if you want to build a winning team. If you put him leadoff, in the 4-hole, he won’t change anything. He’ll just do the same thing.”
That’s the approach that worked for Scutaro. Even in the 10th inning of a clinching World Series game.
“I can already see that .330,” Scutaro said.
Scutaro’s nickname in Venezuela, El Pulpo, came from a broadcaster who liked his intelligent style of play and considered the octopus one of the world’s most intelligent creatures. Arraez’s nickname, La Regadera, was coined by his sister, Normelis, to describe the way her brother seemingly deposited baseballs off every blade of outfield grass. Arraez wore the name on the back of his jersey during players’ weekend over the past few seasons. It’s the Spanish term for a watering can or sprinkler.
When it rains, sometimes all you can do is embrace it.