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He walked on at Arizona. \u201cLike a fresh start kind of thing, a new scene, and I worked hard and made the team and then kept chipping away,\u201d Oliva said. \u201cBy the time I was a junior, things came together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Oliva hit .321 that season, and the Pirates took him in the seventh round of the MLB draft. He was called up in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and got into six games; the next year, he got 40 at-bats. It was less a cup of coffee than a demitasse.<\/p>\n
As he has tried to work his way back to the big leagues,\u00a0Oliva\u00a0\u2014 pronounced \u201cOLIV-ah,\u201d it\u2019s derived from a Czech name\u00a0\u2014 focused on his strength, his speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to run is something I\u2019ve always been able to do,\u201d he said. \u201cBut really, the last couple of years, it\u2019s been an opportunity to put pressure on the defense, not just stealing bases, but causing havoc.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t outrun the ball, there\u2019s obviously the right times, the right situations to test it. But, yeah, this is a valuable asset. If you\u2019ve got something, then use it to your advantage to help the team win.\u201d<\/p>\n
In doing so, Oliva has made himself very much a possibility for the Giants, who plan to push the action on the bases this season, and other teams have taken note. He\u2019s an intriguing bench consideration\u00a0\u2014 five years after his last big-league shot. Vitello has noted that Oliva plays all three outfield spots well and that his speed and defense profile well for Oracle Park.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think everyone here believes they can play in the big leagues and believes they can contribute,\u201d Oliva said. \u201cI\u2019m right there with them. I got an opportunity with the Pirates and things didn\u2019t work out, timing-wise, and I just don\u2019t think I was in a position to best succeed. I wasn\u2019t ready when I was called upon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s always something I\u2019ve wanted to get back, because I believe I can help a team win. I believe what I do can be valuable. Call it chasing the dream, calling it believing in yourself, but I am super fortunate to get that opportunity here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outfielder Jared\u00a0Oliva, who leads the Cactus League with 13 stolen bases, is in the running to win a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[10897,104706,101,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127,10892],"class_list":["post-230804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-giants","tag-jared-oliva","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports","tag-tony-vitello"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}