DYK: 23 amazing facts from Giants' 23-5 win

September 2nd, 2020

The Giants began hitting from the opening inning on Tuesday night at Coors Field, and they never stopped.

By the time the dust settled on a wild night, the Giants had raced to a 23-5 victory over the Rockies, making plenty of history along the way. Left fielder Alex Dickerson led the charge, going 5-for-6 with two doubles, three homers (just missing a fourth), a walk, five runs scored and six RBIs. And he had plenty of help from his teammates, who combined with Dickerson to pound out 27 hits, 13 of them for extra bases.

Here are 23 mind-blowing facts about the Giants’ huge night -- one for each run they scored.

A Giant game at the plate

• This was the sixth time in the Modern Era (since 1900) that the Giants franchise scored at least 23 runs in a game. Their last such occurrence came on June 8, 1990, also on the road, against the Braves at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. That day’s Giants lineup featured All-Stars Will Clark, Matt Williams, Kevin Mitchell and future Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter.

• The last team to put up 23 runs in a game was the Astros in a 23-2 road win against the Orioles on Aug. 10 of last year. The last NL team to do so was the Mets in the first game of a doubleheader against the Phillies by a score of 24-4 on Aug. 16, 2018.

• The Giants just narrowly missed out on becoming the 21st team to score at least one run in every inning in which it had an at-bat -- they scored in the first eight -- with the most recent club to do so being the White Sox in 2016. This is the first time the club has scored in each of the first eight innings of a game since it moved to San Francisco in 1958. It hadn't happened since the New York Giants scored in the first eight frames against the Reds on July 19, 1949.

• The Giants won a game by at least 18 runs for only the third time since the franchise moved to San Francisco. They previously beat the Expos 18-0 on May 24, 2000, and the Cardinals 21-2 on July 9, 1988.

• The last time the franchise won a road game by at least 18 runs, they were the New York Giants and defeated the Phillies -- also by a 23-5 score -- on July 11, 1931.

• Fueling those 23 runs were 27 Giants hits, marking the 10th time the franchise has racked up that many in a game -- and the first time since that Braves game in June 1990. Combined with the five walks they drew, the Giants reached base 32 times without an error for the first time in more than 50 years dating back to a 17-16 loss to the Padres on May 23, 1970.

• Thirteen of those 27 San Francisco hits went for extra bases, and that tied a franchise record; the only other time the Giants racked up a baker’s dozen extra-base knocks was in a game against the Pirates way back on June 15, 1929. The Giants had not even recorded 12 extra-base hits in a game since another contest at Coors Field on July 2, 2002. 

• San Francisco cashed in on its chances, going 11-for-26 with runners in scoring position. The franchise had put men in scoring position 26 times on only two previous occasions as far as data is complete for that statistic beginning in 1974. 

Dickerson and company deliver

• Dickerson totaled five extra-base hits on the night: three homers and two doubles. That tied the Major League record for extra-base hits in a game and set a franchise record for the Giants, a team that began play in the National League in 1883.

• Speaking of franchise records, Dickerson tied another by racking up 16 total bases. The only other Giants player with 16 total bases in a game was Willie Mays, in his four-homer game on April 30, 1961. The last player with both 16 total bases and five extra-base hits in a game was Cardinals slugger Matt Carpenter on July 20, 2018.

• No player had recorded three homers and two doubles in a Modern Era Major League game until Kris Bryant did so for the Cubs on June 27, 2016. Then Carpenter followed just over two years later in that 2018 game at Wrigley Field. Now, Dickerson has grown that exclusive club to three players in the last five years -- when none had previously done so across the first 115 years of Modern Era baseball.

• The home run portion of Dickerson’s night happened quickly -- he had three home runs through the first six innings. It was just the sixth time in Giants history that a player had three homers through the first six innings of a regular-season game. Dickerson was the first Giant to do so since Willie McCovey on April 21, 1964. It is worth noting that teammate Pablo Sandoval’s three home runs in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series were also within the first six innings.

• Dickerson got two chances at hitting a fourth home run, in the eighth and ninth innings. After walking in the eighth, he hit a 414-foot double in the ninth. How close was he to joining the elite list of players with a four-homer game? That batted ball would’ve been a home run in 29 other Major League ballparks -- everywhere but Coors Field, based on normal weather conditions.

• The end results are impressive enough, but Dickerson did not get them cheaply, despite playing at Coors Field. All five of his hits qualified as hard contact (95 mph exit velocity or harder, per Statcast) and four were barrels -- batted balls with an optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. This was only the seventh game since Statcast began tracking (2015) in which a player racked up four barrels, and the first since J.D. Martinez’s four-homer effort for the D-backs against the Dodgers on Sept. 4, 2017.

• Dickerson’s first homer of the night flew a projected 480 feet into Coors Field’s right field second deck, setting a new Giants Statcast record. Brandon Belt previously owned San Francisco’s longest homer (475 on May 22, 2015), unsurprisingly also hit in Colorado. Dickerson’s drive also is the second-longest homer across MLB this season, trailing only Giancarlo Stanton’s 483-foot blast on July 25.

• Dickerson also scored five runs, thanks to all the activity by his teammates. He is the first Giants player to both score at least five runs and drive in at least five runs in one game since Phil Weintraub on June 12, 1944, against the Dodgers. Weintraub actually pulled that feat off twice during the summer of 1944, and both instances came against the Giants’ Brooklyn rivals.

• A party is always more fun with friends, and Dickerson had them in this one. Teammates Donovan Solano (4-for-6) and Brandon Crawford (3-for-6) also drove in six runs apiece, making the Giants the first team in MLB history to have three players reach that RBI total in the same game. In fact, there had never been a game in which three players from the two teams combined all had six-plus RBIs.

• Five different Giants players -- Dickerson, Solano, Crawford, Belt (3-for-3) and Joey Bart (3-for-5) -- racked up at least three hits, tying a franchise-high for any game since at least 1901. The last time San Francisco saw five of its batsmen tally at least three hits in a game came in that 23-run contest against the Braves in 1990.

A long night for the reeling Rox

• Rockies pitchers allowed at least one run in each of the first eight innings of the game. Finally, they put up a zero in the ninth. The “pitcher” who accomplished that feat? That would be Drew Butera, who is actually a catcher by trade. Butera even got a strikeout, whiffing Daniel Robertson.

• Butera’s scoreless inning was a high note, though. The Rockies’ 23 runs allowed were the third most in a game in franchise history and most since May 19, 1999, when the Reds won a 24-12 blowout at Coors Field. The losing pitcher in that game was current Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto.

• The Rockies’ 27 hits and 13 extra-base hits allowed both trailed only that 1999 loss to the Reds (28 hits, 15 extra-base hits) in franchise history.

• The only other team to beat the Rockies by at least 18 runs at Coors Field was the 1995 Cubs, who won a 26-7 blowout there on Aug. 18 that season.

• Home sweet home? Not really. Colorado has lost nine of its past 11 games at Coors Field. The Rockies have allowed at least 10 runs in five of their past six home losses.