Hunter Pence May be the Hero the Giants’ Offense Needs
The San Francisco Giants’ offense is scuffling. Shocking, right? There’s no consistency involving when it comes to team at the plate. One night they put up a season-high eight runs, and over the next two contests, they go 3-15 with runners in scoring position and manage six runs.
If not for the mess the Philadelphia Phillies are dealing with, the Giants would be dead last in baseball in a few offensive categories. The Giant have scored 115 runs and hit 21 home runs, better than only the Phillies’ 103 runs and 19 home runs.
The Giants are also hitting .230 with runners in scoring position, which is 28th in baseball.
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Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford each have five home runs, which are tied for the team’s lead. That total would lead just one other team in baseball, the New York Mets. Crawford’s team-leading 17 RBI would lead just three other teams.
The Giants need a hero, and that hero may be on the way. He wears abnormally high socks, he throws weird, he hits weird, he even runs weird, and his rally cry is heard throughout AT&T Park as thousands of fans chant “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Hunter Pence is that hero. He doesn’t wear a cape and he doesn’t look like a hero, but he is a rock for the Giants.
Before this season, Pence started 323 of 324 games in the past two years, and made an appearance in the lone “day off”. He’s the emotional leader of the team, and when he returns, he may just need to be the physical leader as well.
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In 2013, Pence hit 27 home runs and drove in 99 runs while batting .283. For the last couple months of that year, Pence carried the team at the plate.
The next year, Pence hit 20 home runs, brought in 74 runs, scored 106 times, and he filled many roles. He batted all over the order, from lead-off to clean-up,and anywhere else the team needed him on a particular day. He didn’t let up in the postseason.
He played in all 17 playoffs games, no surprise there, and batted .333 with a homer, eight RBI, and 12 runs scored. If not for the all-time heroics of Madison Bumgarner, Pence could have been the World Series MVP.
On a team full of question marks, right field seemed like the one secure spot. No one could take it from Pence, expect in the worst of circumstances. In Spring Training, the worst of circumstances occurred.
Pence went down in Spring Training, as Corey Black, a young pitcher with control issues for the Chicago Cubs, drilled Pence in his forearm with a fastball, causing a fracture that shattered the picture of consistency in right field.
Justin Maxwell has been good in his place. He’s hitting .250, which isn’t all that impressive, but is more than .20 points higher than his career average. His right field defense has been impeccable, except for a miscue on a throw that looked like a quarterback fumbling in the pocket a few days ago.
While Maxwell has been a noble fill-in, the reality is that he is no Pence. There is no one like Pence in baseball, and the Giants sorely miss his .296 career average with runners in scoring position.
Pence is getting closer to his triumphant return. He’s begun rehabbing in Triple-A Sacramento, and he is looking more and more like the awkward Pence we all know and love.
In his first two games with Sacramento, Pence went 0-5 with a pair of strikeouts, but did record an RBI on a sacrifice fly. After a day off, Pence recorded his first hit in a 1-3 effort, and drew a walk as well.
The next night, Pence played all nine innings for the first time, and went 1-4 with a home run, 2 RBI, and a walk. He took another day off, then played his best game of the rehab stint on Thursday.
For the second game in a row, Pence played all nine innings, and recorded three hits in five at-bats. He homered for the second consecutive game, and drove in another two runs.
Pence won’t fix everything for the Giants. But the team has done well to keep their heads above water thus far, and Pence may be the rescue boat that could get them to dry land.
It won’t be quick and easy for Pence to return to the major leagues and be back to his old self. It’ll take time for him to get back his strike zone and timing, but when he does, he could become the Giants’ biggest offensive threat yet again.
Like the citizens of Gotham sending up the Bat Signal for the Caped Crusader, the Giants need a hero to rescue them from their offensive woes. It’s just a matter of time before Pence answers the call and takes his rightful place in right field for the Giants, with his cape billowing behind him in the wind.