Darin Ruf on rejoining the Giants: ‘There’s not a better spot for me’

Darin Ruf needed a fresh start. He also needed to be around familiar faces.

The Giants were the only organization that could offer him both.

Ruf, who returned to the Giants on a minor-league contract over the weekend, found himself as far removed as a pro ballplayer can get from the major leagues on Monday: sandwiched between Marco Luciano and Vaun Brown in an extended spring training lineup on the back fields of Papago Park. He had six at-bats against minor-league pitchers, who didn’t always know where the ball was going. His swing was rusty following a week in transactional limbo.

It was baseball heaven.

“I am very happy to be back,” said Ruf, speaking by phone as he drove away from the Giants minor-league complex. “Last year … it didn’t go the way I personally wanted it to. Obviously not for the Giants as a team, either. And getting traded didn’t work out the way anyone wanted.”

Certainly not for the New York Mets. The Giants had dipped under .500 at the trade deadline last August and were on the fringes of contention when the Mets made them an offer that they couldn’t refuse. The Mets coveted Ruf’s production against left-handed pitching. They viewed him as a final touch to a roster that was gearing up for postseason play. They were willing to part with four players to get him. In addition to pitching prospects Nick Zwack and Carson Seymour, the Giants obtained Thomas Szapucki, a left-hander who touched 98 mph and was considered big-league ready. And the Giants obtained J.D. Davis, essentially a younger version of Ruf who had run out of chances to establish himself in New York.

The trade was a disaster for the Mets. Ruf hit .152 in 66 at-bats. He struck out 20 times. Making things worse, Davis outhomered him 8-0 after the trade. Against the howls and protestations of Mets fans on social media, Ruf made the playoff roster in the wild-card series. He went 0 for 3 with a walk in his only start. The Padres bounced the Mets in three games. And Ruf, an Omaha native who has the most affable and inoffensive personality imaginable, discovered what happens when you become an object of scorn in the league’s biggest media market.

“Anywhere you struggle, fans are going to be tough on you but in New York it’s magnified,” Ruf said. “I think the media there really runs with what fans’ perceptions are. So you’re kind of getting crushed by two entities. Even if you’re not on social media a heck of a lot, you still have an idea and you see things.”

The midseason trade was jarring in every respect. Ruf’s wife, Libby, and their two young children, Henry and Olive, had adapted to San Francisco. When the Giants won a franchise-record 107 games in 2021, Ruf’s 1.007 OPS against left-handed pitching made him a perfect fit on their matchup-based roster. The Giants signed him to a two-year, $6.25 million contract. The family looked forward to living a bit less of an itinerant baseball life.

During the 2021…