SF Giants postgame ritual goes awry, reporter's laptop obliterated after celebratory dousing

Down on the Oracle Park field, as the final echoes of a 7-2 Giants victory over the New York Mets were still settling, Kylen Mills was mid-interview with rookie catcher Daniel Susac when shortstop Willy Adames materialized behind the 24-year-old with a full cooler of orange Powerade.

The resulting deluge caught Mills, NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Shawn Estes, and Mills' open laptop in a single wall of liquid. Slow-motion footage captured the laptop violently bending backward under the force before it went dark. Mills' handwritten stat notepad, filled with in-game notes built up across nine innings, was also soaked beyond legibility. She posted on X with characteristic composure: "My laptop is cooked. 😂"

Jomboy Media amplified the clip on X with the caption "Postgame reporter's laptop got destroyed by the Gatorade bath 😭," propelling the moment to viral status within hours. The SFGiants official account added its own video, captioned "Stay cool, rookie 🥶," a nod to Susac's unfazed demeanor through the whole soaking.

The celebration was anything but arbitrary. Susac had just completed one of the most complete Giants debut performances in recent memory, going 3-for-3 with a walk in the April 2 win over the Mets, becoming the first Giant to reach base four times in a debut start since Kevin Frandsen on April 28, 2006. He singled on the very first pitch he saw in the big leagues, a David Peterson offering, then added two more singles, including one off Sean Manaea in the seventh inning. Pitcher Blade Tidwell earned his first career MLB save in the same game. Daniel is also the younger brother of former Giants catcher Andrew Susac, who spent six seasons in the majors.

The timing made the stakes particularly sharp for Mills. NBC Sports Bay Area announced her as host of Giants Pregame Live and Giants Postgame Live on March 9, with her on-air debut coming March 27, the Giants' second game of the season against the New York Yankees. She arrived with nearly 14 years of media experience spanning NBC Sports California, the Big Ten Network, and FOX Sports. Adames' cooler found her less than a month into that tenure, in the middle of a live interview on a night with genuine historic news value.

Adames, who signed a seven-year, $182 million contract with the Giants in December 2024, the largest in franchise history and well clear of the $167 million deal Buster Posey signed in 2013, is earning approximately $13.1 million in 2026 alone. Multiple outlets noted that replacing the hardware would present him no financial hardship. He and the Giants offered to buy Mills a new laptop regardless.

She didn't need one. Mills took the machine home, packed it in a bag of rice overnight, and by April 4 it had revived fully. She used it on air for Giants Pregame Live that same evening.

The episode exposed a structural tension that surfaces in every MLB postgame corridor: credentialed reporters filing live on fragile equipment, working in close physical proximity to players whose celebrations follow no set script. Around the Foghorn noted that Adames has made the Powerade bath something of a personal clubhouse ritual since arriving in San Francisco. That pattern, combined with the speed at which this clip circulated, may push media relations staffs to reconsider whether live broadcast positions need clearer spatial separation from the field during postgame celebrations, particularly when a rookie's first career start is still fresh and a cooler is anywhere in sight.