The Giants are .500 in their last 168 baseball games.
After finishing the 2022 season 81-81, the Giants split their six-game road trip to start the season with a win in the series finale against the White Sox. The Giants showed boom, bust and a bit of everything in between.
Against aces Dylan Cease and Gerrit Cole, San Francisco’s offense failed to match up. But they blasted seven home runs in a single game and got an encouraging shutout performance from Anthony DeSclafani.
On Thursday, it was more boom as the Giants cracked five more homers to overcome a subpar start from Alex Wood. The quintet of Michael Conforto, Blake Sabol, Mike Yastrzemksi, Wilmer Flores and J.D. Davis powered San Francisco (3-3) to a 16-6 victory over the White Sox.
With five more home runs Thursday, the Giants tied their franchise record for most round-trippers in a three-game series with 13. They lead Major League Baseball with 15 in six games — also a franchise record. Only seven teams ever have cleared the fences more than 15 times in their first six games of a season.
Already in this young season, the Giants broke their franchise record for strikeouts in an opening series (41). Logan Webb fanned a career-high 12 in a record-breaking Opening Day start. And two feisty dust-ups, with Tim Anderson and Andrew Vaughn, spiced up SF’s first series win.
Thursday brought more fireworks.
Michael Conforto started the home run surge with his second as a Giant. His first-inning shot drove in David Villar and Wilmer Flores in the first inning. The outfielder turned on a 1-2 cutter over the plate, sending it 108.1 mph deep to right field.
Then the next inning, Sabol — who served as catcher — smoked his first MLB home run.
A Thairo Estrada error and a string of singles stung Wood for two runs in the second. The lefty departed after three innings, handing the ball off to long reliever Jakob Junis.
The Giants’ hot offense made Wood’s short start insignificant.
Joc Pederson struck out on a pitch that hit him but also drove in two runs with a lined single. And then Yastrzemski joined the home run party with a solo shot that knocked Lance Lynn out of the game.
Yastrzemski received MVP votes in 2020, but hit .219 over the past two seasons after the breakout. Early on, he has looked more convictive in the batter’s box.
Three bombs was enough on the scoreboard for SF, as Junis hung up four scoreless frames, but Flores added another homer anyway. So did J.D. Davis in the ninth with a grand slam off a position player.
Flores hit second in the lineup, Conforto fifth, Davis sixth, Yastrzemski seventh and Sabol ninth.
“Probably not going to come from one individual,” manager Gabe Kapler said on April 1. “It’s going to get spread out. You’re going to see extra base hits and home runs, but they may be up and down the lineup like 2021 — although, not trying to duplicate anything. It’s more that we expect contributions from people up and down the lineup.”
The evenly distributed contributions have been historic. Teams with Bonds and Clark never started a season this powerfully. Neither did clubs with Mays and Cepeda.
The power surge sends the Giants home for their first games at Oracle Park of 2023 right where they left it last year: at .500.