Alex Dickerson made his Giants debut in the middle of the 2019 season, a year when Buster Posey was rushing from hip surgery and struggling to get anywhere close to his old production on the record. Dickerson became an everyday player for the Giants in 2020, when Posey signed out a month before the start of the season.
Dickerson has never played with the All-Star version of the face of the franchise, but he’s been in NL West long enough to know what to look for. Dickerson made his San Diego Padres debut in 2015, about 10 months after Posey won his third World Series, and as he watched Posey take massive swings on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Dickerson felt a sense of familiarity.
“I saw him when he was at his best, and he’s totally behind that,” Dickerson said in a video conference on Tuesday following the Giants’ 10-7 victory over the Phillies. “He hasn’t really missed a beat.”
Posey had two homeruns one night when the Giants hit five while overwhelming the Phillies. The last two – three-run shots from Dickerson and Wilmer Flores – swept a two-run deficit in the eighth. Tommy La Stella also added a two-run homer early on, his first as Giant, but it was Posey’s swing that stood out.
The Giants took on Posey in the first round in 2008, and a year later a tall right-handed named Zack Wheeler was called up. For a few years, it looked like the two would enter the franchise together for the next decade, but Wheeler was assigned to the New York Mets after Posey was injured in 2011. It seems that Posey never forgot what Wheeler’s stuff looked like back then. , however.
Posey hopped on a slider in the fifth inning and hit a 428-foot blast to the left in the middle. An inning later, he got a 98 mph fastball on and in and somehow jerked him into the seats to the left for his first multi-homer game since 2016. It was Posey’s first homer on a pitch of 98 mph or higher in six years, and according to Inside Edge, he became only the third player in the past three seasons to homer on a 98-plus pitch and was also up-and-in.
“He gets to say that to be honest, I don’t see many people coming,” said Dickerson. “Zack Wheeler is about as good as it gets in MLB and he took it twice deep, so I would say Buster is back.”
You may be able to say the same about the whole offense, which struggled for most of April. The 10 runs were one season high and they were timed perfectly. The Giants didn’t get many nights from their pitchers, but Logan Webb gave up four runs in four innings. The Phillies added two more off Jarlin Garcia, but the Giants never panicked.
Dickerson gave the pitching staff credit for being “so far incredible” and picking up all the slack, but the lineup was finally ready to carry all the load on Tuesday. The five-night homer was the first in two seasons under manager Gabe Kapler, who has been pushing for a breakthrough all month.
“I think it represents more of the kind of offense we are,” Kapler said.
The Giants had confidence in the group last year and they thought it would be a real strength this season as one of the best lineups in the National League. Kapler said on Tuesday that no matter how you felt about the success of the 60-game season, you couldn’t deny that the line-up would be better with Posey back and La Stella in the mix.
Both were heavily involved on Tuesday, along with the usual mix of good pinch hit at bat.
Darin Ruf’s walk with two outs in the fifth ensured that transferring the game to the bullpen would not be a mistake and led to La Stella’s homer. Flores got off the bench three innings later for his first pinch-hit homer as Giant.
“We know what we can do,” said Flores. ‘Our attack has not happened so far, but we are waking up. This is a great victory tonight. ‘
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