CINCINNATI — Alex Wood spent a season here — not a very memorable one, mind you, missing most of it with a back injury — but that wasn’t why he would have had this game circled on his calendar.
No, the personal significance for the Giants’ No. 3 starter was realized when the Reds’ No. 5 hitter stepped to the plate in the first inning. That man was Kyle Farmer, his roommate at the University of Georgia. The best man in his wedding. Someone he shares a tattoo with honoring their former teammate who was paralyzed.
Wood and Farmer have taken such parallel paths — even traded here together from the Dodgers in December 2018 — that the plate appearance in the first inning of Saturday’s 3-2 loss was the first time the two best friends had faced each other in 16 combined major league seasons.
