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Giants beat Rockies 23-5. Seriously.

Alex Dickerson had a historically great game as the Giants reversed their run differential in one night.

MLB: San Francisco Giants at Colorado Rockies Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

Pick a verb like “destroy” or “annihilate” or “mollywhop.” Punch it into a thesaurus and admire all the pretty words that come out. Pick your word of choice; there’s no right answer, just take the word that looks prettiest to you.

Make it past tense and plug it into the following sentence: “Giants [INSERT YOUR VERB HERE] Rockies.”

There it is, that’s your custom headline for the San Francisco Giants 23-5 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night at Coors Field.

You’re welcome.


I’m going to let you in on a dirty little industry secret. Hilariously lopsided wins are lots of fun to watch, but not that interesting to write about. A back-and-forth affair, or a wild comeback, or a 17-inning fiasco? They make for good literature.

But 23-5 wins? Where the team you like looks deserving of comic books written in their honor, and their opponent looks like when you accidentally step on a McDonalds ketchup packet on the sidewalk?

Not the stuff that poets and great American novelists were built for.

So instead of trying to recap a game in traditional fashion (which would look like this: “LOL ROCKIES”), I’m just going to do two things.

Thing the first: some cool stuff the team did

In which I list some really cool thing that the Giants did during their shellacking.

  • They had 27 hits. If you’re new to baseball (hi, hello, grab a seat, pour yourself some lemonade, introduce yourself, and oh yeah, don’t expect to see another game like this for a few decades), that’s the same number of outs that a team is allotted.

It’s a very nice day when a player has as many hits as they have outs recorded. It something else entirely when a team accomplishes such a ridiculous feat.

  • They became the first team in MLB history — I repeat, in MLB history (or at least since these things were well tracked starting in 1920) — to have three different players have six runs batted in.
  • They knocked the Rockies starting pitcher, Jon Gray, out of the game before the Rockies had a hit.
  • Their sheer boredom in the ninth inning kept them from becoming the first team in 21 years to score in every inning of a nine-inning game.
  • They entered the game with a -19 run differential. At one point they had not only erased that entire negative differential, but turned it into a +2 differential. It ended the game at -1.
  • They tied the franchise record for runs in a game since moving to San Francisco.
  • They had 27 hits. And 23 runs. Not sure if I mentioned that yet.

Thing the second: some cool stuff the players did

In which I list some cool things Giants players did.

  • Alex Dickerson had one of the greatest games in MLB history. He went 5-6 with 3 home runs, 2 doubles, and a walk, which tied him with Willie Mays for the most total bases by a Giant in franchise history. Yes, he did something offensively that Barry Bonds never did.

He raised his slash line from .221/.299/.395 to .261/.337/.543 in one game. He raised his wRC+ from 87 to 127 in his 31st game of the year. He turned a disappointing individual season into a really good one in one night.

May we all be so fortunate.

He also hit a home run 480 feet.

He became just the 15th player in MLB history with 5 extra-base hits in a game.

  • Mike Yastrzemski was 2-4 with a triple and a walk, and even with the outcome mostly secured he laid his body on the line for a gorgeous catch.
  • Brandon Crawford was 3-6 with a home run and a double, and is now having the best offensive season of his career.
  • Joey Bart had the first multi-hit game of his career, with a trio of singles. He also got plunked by a pitch, and I really wish people would stop doing that to him.
  • I’m running out of words for Brandon Belt, who was 3-3 with a walk and 2 doubles. In the last two-plus weeks he’s now hitting 24-47 with 4 home runs, 7 doubles, 1 triple, and 8 walks to just 6 strikeouts. What in the world.
  • Pablo Sandoval had an infield single.
  • Daniel Robertson made his Giants debut and had a hard hit single.
  • The Giants used 13 position players. 12 of them reached base safely and 11 of them had a hit, including all nine starters.

Oh, and they won. 23-5. With 27 hits.

Prepare to get no-hit on Wednesday.