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38 PLAY BALL BAY AREA NEWS GROUP F romtheDuffmancartoon logos on the knobs of his bats to his family's enor- mous 30-pound tabby, Matt Duffy garnered his share of quirky attention as a major league rookie last season. But even Skeeter the cat could not obscure the real significance of Duffy's season. What other team, in the span of five months, had a player who went from utili - ty man to becoming the National League's active leader in consec- utive games played? Who hit a dozen homers in the big leagues after failing to go deep once in three years with an aluminum bat at Long Beach State? Who finished with the most RBIs (77) by a Giants rookie since Dave Kingman in 1972, and the most extra-base hits (46) by a Giants rookie since Chili Davis in 1982? And who became the first rookie in Giants history to be elected by his fellow teammates as the Willie Mac Award winner, bestowed on the player who best exemplified heart, spirit and leadership? Duffy's remarkable emergence allowed the Giants to cross off what should've been a franchise quandary: finding a long-term re - placement at third base for World Series hero Pablo Sandoval. It was quite the fancy feast. Now Duffy is hungry for seconds. Ofallthenumbersyouputupand accolades you received, including a second-place finish in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting, what meant the most to you? My progression at third base. Learning a new position on the fly, the amount of work we put in — I was proud of that. And then the Willie Mac Award. … Anything that is voted on by your teammates means a lot more. They're the ones who spend the most time with you. You're in a confined space with the same people for eight months at a time. So for that group, who knows you the best, to think highly enough to vote for you, that was something I was really proud of. The Willie Mac Award has never been given to a rookie before. Were you aware of that when they told you that you were the recipient? I didn't know that. I figured there were so many guys who had a strong argument. I mean, Brandon Crawford had a break - out year. Buster Posey had won it before, but he had another great year. Javy Lopez had an unbe- lievable year out of the bullpen. Jeremy Affeldt and Tim Hudson were retiring. And there were more beyond those. None of those names would have surprised me. While you seem to enjoy proving people wrong, I don't get the sense that you're driven by that. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah. Um … yeah. It's definitely something that puts a chip on my shoulder. But whether somebody says I can or can't do something, I'm going to go about my work in the same way. Yeah, it's not a driving force, but it does definitely make it a little more satisfying. There's always going to be people who say, 'He can't sustain this lev - el of production' or, 'He's playing above his potential.' They're al- ways going to say it. This is how I try to take it: People who say that are people who don't know me on a personal level, don't know what drives me, don't know what goes on in my head in the box or on defense. They don't know my type of mental game or my approach. They think I'm just getting lucky. To those people, I say, 'That's OK — I don't necessarily take it personal.' But it does put a chip on your shoulder. You did hit .313 in May, .313 in June, .316 in July and .301 in August. Lucky people usually aren't that consistent, are they? I take pride in that. I think a consistent mindset yields consistent results, whether it's a consistently bad mindset and bad results or a good mindset and good results. That's something I've put a lot of work into. I take a lot of pride in it, and that's where the consistency comes from. Most people probably know by now that you didn't hit a single home run in three years swinging an aluminum bat at Long Beach State. You hit 12 home runs off big league pitching last year. I suppose you'll say you focus on having good at-bats and hitting the ball hard, but how has power emerged as part of your game, and could there be more in there? I think the power came from playing a little heavier than I played in the past. At Long Beach, I was in the low 160s. When I was in Double-A, every time I'd hit a double to the wall, Clayton Black - burn would shake his head and say, 'Man, 20 more pounds, and it's a homer.' Last year, I played 10 to 12 pounds heavier. I came into spring training almost 20 pounds heavier. And the other big part of it was working with Bam Duffy hits a home run against the Nationals in August. Duffy hit 12 homers last season after a three-year drought at Long Beach State. THE GIANTS