Brandon Crawford: The Giants’ New Offensive Juggernaut
When San Francisco Giants‘ shortstop Brandon Crawford made his big league debut as a 24-year-old in 2011, he was considered one of those prototypical “all glove, no bat” shortstops. For the first few years of his career, he lived up to that billing.
On May 27th, 2011, Crawford made a big splash in his very first big league game. In the seventh inning of a game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Crawford took Brewers’ pitcher Shaun Marcum deep with the bases loaded, tallying a grand slam as his first major league hit.
No bat? Yeah, right!
Well, his production in 2011 didn’t really live up to the high standard Crawford set in that at-bat, and he hit just .204 that year. In 66 games, Crawford hit just three home runs and drove in 21 runs in 196 at-bats.
The next two seasons continued the trend of Crawford being an average hitter. He hit .248 in each year, and totaled 50 doubles, six triples, 13 home runs and 88 RBI in 292 games. He made up for his lack of offensive production by playing his normal strong defense, and it looked as if that was where his true value would always lie.
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But in 2014, Crawford really cranked it up a notch, and changed the perception of him. Despite his average dropping ever so slightly to .246, he posted career highs in a ton of categories. He hit 10 home runs, 10 triples, drove in 69 runs, and hit 40 total extra-base hits. His .324 on-base percentage (helped by a team-leading 59 walks) and .389 slugging percentage were also career-bests.
The signature moment for Crawford in 2014 came in the Giants’ wildcard game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Crawford completely silenced a raucous Pittsburgh crowd in the fourth inning of the win-or-go-home game by crushing an Edinson Volquez fastball into the right field stands for a grand slam. The bomb took the crowd totally out of the game, and the Giants cruised to an 8-0 victory, eventually ending with another World Series victory.
Crawford has built off the very good 2014 he enjoyed, and is off to an incredible start in 2015. His average sits just under the magical .300 mark at .298. He leads the Giants with 15 extra-base hits, 20 runs scored, and 26 runs batted in. His current RBI total puts him on pace for more than 100, and leads all major league shortstops.
Maybe the most impressive part is that Crawford has done most of his damage while hitting seventh or eighth in the lineup. He’s taken just 25 of his 131 at-bats out of the bottom third of the lineup, and has four RBI in those 25 chances.
While he’s coming into his own at the plate, his defense is maybe better than it has ever been. He’s committed just four errors to this point, and owns a very solid .977 fielding percentage. The diving play to rob a base hit up the middle seems to have become commonplace for Crawford.
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One hugely noticeable improvement Crawford has made over the past few years is his ability to hit left-handed pitchers. In his first three seasons, Crawford hit just .214 against lefties (62-290), and would often be replaced against opposing southpaws to gain a more favorable matchup with a right-handed hitter.
In 2014, Crawford put all thoughts of a platoon away. He hit .320 (49-153) against left-handers with 23 RBI, and made a habit out of ruining the other teams’ left-handed specialists’ night.
This year, although it has come in a small sample size, Crawford has ripped apart opposing lefties. In 29 at-bats, he has 12 hits (.414) with two home runs and seven RBI. Just Wednesday night, Crawford went 3-3 against Los Angeles Dodgers’ left-hander Brett Anderson, including a scoreless tie-breaking RBI single. He’s 6-7 with two RBI against Anderson alone this year.
Can Crawford continue this offensive outburst? Is this the Crawford we can expect now? If you’ve listened to Giants’ announcer Mike Krukow talk about Crawford, you know how Krukow loves Crawford’s “flat swing”, and that he believed Crawford had the potential to be a .275-ish hitter.
Crawford’s hot start has to surpass Krukow’s expectations. It would be a tall task to find anyone who could have predicted that Crawford would become this much of an offensive force so quickly. But now there’s no hiding the fact that Crawford is becoming one of the better shortstops in the game as his bat is finally catching up to his glove.
Now 28 years old, Crawford has entered what many consider to be his prime as a player. This is around that time that many players finally hit that age where they seem to really put things together. Crawford definitely looks to have done that in the early goings of this year.
Crawford may never become a Derek Jeter-type offensive shortstop. But if he can continue to build on the things he’s doing well, the Giants will be very happy to have this fan favorite in their lineup.