D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
This Giants season is more macro than micro, long-term lessons valued more than individual performances (or underperformances).
Still, as the 81st game of an already lost season finished the first half of the Giants’ schedule, there were semblances of hope from a team that has had a dearth of it.
There was Shaun Anderson, one of the more successful rookie tryouts this year, pitching like a veteran.
There was Alex Dickerson, Farhan Zaidi’s best discovery this year, bouncing a fastball into McCovey Cove.
And there were Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey, two longtime Giants who have hit more a wall than a speed bump this year, combining for six hits.
It all added up to a 6-3 Giants victory in front of 35,391 at Oracle Park on Friday, the Giants closing the front end of their 162-game schedule 35-46, out of the race and heading toward being sellers, but with glimmers of hope to cling on to.
Anderson’s effort was most impressive, lacking the high-octane stuff that Tyler Beede flashes but in control from first pitch to last. Anderson, living in the low 90s, was always around the plate, ahead of Arizona hitters all night. It wasn’t the most pristine statline – 5 2/3 innings with two runs on seven hits and one walk with three strikeouts – but he limited a dangerous lineup without blinking and while getting just six swinging strikes.
The 24-year-old bore down when needed and didn’t run into trouble until the fourth, when a single and walk brought Jake Lamb to the plate with two outs. Anderson could not finish Lamb off, and on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Lamb took an outside fastball and went with it, beating the shift to the left side to cut the lead to 2-1.
Anderson bounced back to get Nick Ahmed on a strikeout and found a bit more trouble in the sixth, when the Diamondbacks finally began to figure him out. David Peralta opened the frame with a long flyout to left-center, Eduardo Escobar then lining a double to right. Ahmed hit a two-out single to center to drive in Escobar and shrink the lead to 3-2, finishing Anderson’s night after 91 pitches. Reyes Moronta would escape any further damage, and the ensuing cavalcade of Giants bullpen arms were mostly untouchable. (It was ironically Will Smith who faltered in the ninth, allowing a run, but he survived.)
On the offensive side, Crawford and Posey led a 12-hit night for San Francisco, which qualifies as an explosion for this team. Crawford has swung much better of late, raising his average 24 points over the last two weeks – but only to .226. His upturn continued with a 3-for-4 night with two doubles and a run scored, his sixth-inning shot to left-center being the 1,000th hit of his career.
Posey, whom Bruce Bochy has refused to move out of the middle of the lineup, looked worthy of batting third, going 3-for-4, including a third-inning double off the very top of the right-field wall that put the Giants up 2-0. He entered the game in a 2-for-28 slump and, signed through at least 2021, will be the team’s leader for years to come. Signs of life from the catcher are welcome to the Giants.
The old was good, and the new was great. The legend of Dickerson, well, grew in the second inning. Playing in his eighth game with the Giants, the man known affectionately as Dick pulled a Merrill Kelly fastball 424 feet to right, bouncing it into McCovey Cove for a 1-0 Giants lead. It was his second homer since joining the Giants, and he finished 2-for-4 with two RBIs.