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Dickerson continues sublime start to Giants tenure in series win over Diamondbacks

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© Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports


The Alex Dickerson era is here, and no one wants to see it go. The unheralded left fielder who the Giants picked up in a trade with the San Diego Padres essentially lost the previous two years of his career to a combination of back and Tommy John surgeries. He, and the rest of the Giants’ bottom-of-the-order hitters propelled the offense for a second-straight night to secure a 7-4 win over the Diamondbacks which secured the series.

Below are four thoughts from another night of purely entertaining Giants baseball:

Dickerson stays hot, gets rewarded with highly personalized chant

There is nothing more entertaining than the random guy coming in for an absurd hot streak. It’s usually due to an injury, never more typified than by Jeremy Lin’s “Linsanity” run with the New York Knicks after Carmelo Anthony got injured. Alex Dickerson has yet to and probably can never reach that level of mind-blowing hot streak coupled with cult fandom, but if the past two days are his high point this season, they won’t be forgotten.

After going 3-for-5 with a grand slam, a 2 RBI triple and a single on Friday night, Dickerson responded by picking up two of the doubles he needed to complete the cycle last night, both of which drove in runs. It combined for a 5-for-9, 9 RBI two-day stretch, something that hadn’t been accomplished since Hunter Pence was a Giant, according to Kerry Crowley:

All of Dickerson’s successes have come with the added bonus (or detriment, depending on your opinion) of a certain, “unique” chant the Giants have provided for him whenever he scores a run, which has always followed a hit:

Bottom of the order (and Yastrzemski (and Will Smith)) keeps getting it done 

Aside from the pitcher’s spot, Joe Panik was the only player to not get a hit tonight, although the Giants failed to get a hit after the third inning until Mike Yastrzemski torched a ball to right field for his fifth home run of the season, in the ninth inning, giving closer Will Smith a three-run cushion. Smith, of course, needed no such cushion, as he converted his 20th save on his 20th attempt of the season by retiring the side, which inched his now-2.01 ERA ever-closer to jumping below the 2.00 mark.

Yastrzemski’s fifth home run is the sixth-highest mark within a power-deprived Giants lineup, and has come in exactly one-third of the Giants’ games this season (25 of 75 games). He’s batting .258 (fourth-highest, excluding Dickerson) with a .476 slugging percentage, which is the third-highest mark on the team (excluding Dickerson and Aramis Garcia, both under 20 plate appearances).

In addition to Yastrzemski’s burst, Kevin Pillar (6th spot) also kept hitting like a man who wants to be traded high, going 2-for-4 and scoring two runs thanks to a similar 2-for-4 night from Brandon Crawford (8th spot), who drove in two runs. Brandon Belt (6th spot) also singled and later scored on a double by Dickerson. Crawford and Dickerson (7th spot) combined for 5 RBIs at the bottom of the order, with Yastrzemski’s home run (below) comprising the other two:

The first inning… another disaster

You know the drill. The Giants are absolutely terrible in first innings this season. With a three-run first-inning deficit against the Diamondbacks on Saturday night, the team has now allowed one run an inning this season: 75 games, 75 runs allowed in first innings (with just 19 scored).

At this point, with the issue (rightfully) discussed after almost every game, there’s not too much else to say about it. With each game that goes by, the stat above simply continues to become more and more bizarre, and no satisfying answer is anywhere near being provided on why the first inning is the disaster it is.

Beede didn’t have it, nor was he close

The fact that Tyler Beede only allowed four runs on Friday night is almost unbelievable. He struggled to hit the strike zone consistently, and was hit hard when he did. While Beede has shown flashes of brilliance this season after a horrid 2018 campaign, tonight was much more closely aligned with the former than the latter.

The one accomplishment by Beede was to limit the Diamondbacks to one run after blowing up in the first. Still, it was an unimpressive outing, and his disappointing line was probably more favorable than it should have been.

In his four innings of work, Beede allowed six hits, four earned runs, three walks and had three strikeouts. The cause of all this dysfunction was his inability to hit the strike zone. He threw 56 strikes on his 95 pitches, an abysmal 58.95 strike rate, which contributed to the 6.96 number which his ERA ballooned to by the time his night was done.