On May 14, 2022, the Giants traded glove-first utility man Mauricio Dubón for catcher Michael Papierski.
Since then Papierski has 29 hits across five Major League games and 57 Triple-A games for three different organizations.
Dubón has won a World Series ring and become Houston’s everyday leadoff man. He entered Monday’s rematch with his former team with 29 hits in the first month of the 2023 season, including a 20-game hitting streak.
On May 1, 2023, the Giants got burned by their past mistakes. Rarely does a failed trade blow up so immediately, so obviously, so aggressively.
Dubón either scored or drove in the Astros’ first four runs in a 7-3 Astros victory. He finished 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBI. The Giants (11-17) have now lost four straight.
The matchup meant a lot to Dubón personally, he told reporters postgame.
“It felt great honestly,” Dubón said. “The thing I liked about the whole things was just watching the guys behind me. They know how much it meant to me to beat these guys, and they were behind me…I was not treated the right way over there, so coming here and being a family here, and being able to perform the way I’m performing, the human side of me comes out.”
Dubón lost his hitting streak on Sunday, and may have begun a new one with his first-inning single off Ross Stripling. He stole second and came around to score on a José Abreu single.
Dubón’s run didn’t hold as an Astros lead for long. In the third inning, Joc Pederson torched a Luis García fastball down the right field line for a two-run rocket.
Pederson’s third of the year left his bat at 111.4 mph and ended up 399 feet from home. It would’ve cleared the fences of any of the 30 ballparks.
Dubón scored again during a trio of two-out singles in the fifth inning, but Stripling kept the score tied with his best outing as a Giant.
Stripling struck out five in five strong innings, keeping the ball in Minute Maid Park. He’d entered Monday with six home runs allowed in 15.2 innings pitched, among the highest rates in MLB.
But then the Astros rallied in the seventh inning against Taylor Rogers, Sean Hjelle and Tristan Beck. Right at the center of it: Dubón.
The second baseman who grew up in Sacramento cracked an RBI double to put the Astros ahead 3-2. That barrel made him 3-for-4 on the night. He added another run to his line when he scored from second on a single.
That burst ignited a five-run Astros burst.
The Giants traded Dubón last year because they had a roster crunch in the infield and a short-term need at catcher due to injuries. San Francisco wanted to carve an everyday role for Thairo Estrada, while also creating playing time for Evan Longoria and Tommy La Stella. Dubón, who was out of options, fell out of the front office’s favor.
The logic made sense in the moment, especially with Dubón hitting .239 on the season after struggling in 2021. But Dubón’s athleticism and fielding versatility were sorely missed as the Giants plummeted out of playoff contention with an aging, defensively inept group.
The Dubón trade — and the Prelander Berroa for Donovan Walton swap — are two stains on the current front office’s track record. But president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has also made an impressive amount of shrewd moves to improve the team since taking over in 2018.
His front office extended Logan Webb to a long-term deal this year. He signed Joc Pederson and Carlos Rodón — both of whom put together All-Star seasons last year. He rejuvenated Kevin Gausman and worked the margins during the 107-win season. He found Mike Yastrzemski, Luis González and LaMonte Wade Jr. off the scrap heap.
Wade, speaking of, socked a solo home run in the eighth for his fourth home run in the past five games. He’s adapted to first base as well as anyone could have hoped and is tied for the team lead in home runs while reaching base 44% of the time as San Francisco’s leadoff hitter.
But Wade’s home run didn’t matter because of Dubón’s massive performance. Sometimes, even if the additive transactions vastly outweigh the failures, it doesn’t feel like it.
