Kyle Crick

It went down at Oracle Park.

After hitting a league-worst 128 home runs last season, the San Francisco Giants finally have a middle of the order centerpiece to build their lineup around.

It looks like the Giants didn’t have to give up much in exchange for one guaranteed year of five-time All-Star Andrew McCutchen.

The Giants were able to hold onto their top three prospects while trading for former NL MVP Andrew McCutchen, but at least one member of the team is headed to Pittsburgh.

While Bobby Evans had a full winter to scour the market for relief pitchers, two players the Giants ended up adding to their 25-man roster during the 2017 season have provided immense help to a bullpen that ranks 15th in the Major Leagues with a 4.07 earned run average.

You know the stories of Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik. The histories of Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Brandon Belt. All were part of a core group that carried the San Francisco Giants through the first half of the decade, one of the most successful stretches for any franchise at any point in baseball history.

Ryder Jones will make his Major League debut on Saturday afternoon, but when he steps into the batter’s box for the first time, he’ll see a familiar face. Even though Mets’ right-hander Jacob deGrom was busy winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award when Jones was spending his first full professional season in the Giants’ organization, Jones said he’s seen deGrom before.

Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow joined Murph & Mac on Friday and said that he was impressed with Kyle Crick’s first ever performance in a major league uniform.

When the Texas Rangers designated reliever Sam Dyson for assignment in late May, a small handful of clubs looking to stock their bullpens for a run at the postseason reportedly expressed interest. That’s why it came as a surprise when Dyson landed with the San Francisco Giants, a team that already dropped off the playoff radar in the National League and a team that spent $62 million on a closer this offseason.

It’s not the first domino to fall, but the Giants’ decision to call up Kyle Crick on Tuesday morning is the latest indication that the momentum is tilting toward a youth movement in San Francisco. After suffering their seventh straight defeat –a lifeless drubbing at the hands of the Atlanta Braves– on Monday evening, the Giants fell 20 games below .500 and 20 games back of the first-place Colorado Rockies in the National League West.