Tuesday BP: A (very brief) history of 7-homer games

Happy Tuesday, San Francisco Giants fans.

Monday’s game sure was fun, wasn’t it? In a 12-3 win over the Chicago White Sox, the Giants hit a whopping seven home runs, which was enough to take an offense that had previously been shut out in 67% of its games (and that had fewer extra-base hits than Adam Duvall) and put them atop MLB’s big fly leaderboard.

Baseball!

If seven home runs seems like a lot, that’s because it is. A cursory search on Stathead informs me that, in the San Francisco era, this is just the third time the Giants have hit seven homers in a game.

So bravo to Joc Pederson, Mike Yastrzemski, Thairo Estrada, Michael Conforto, Bryce Johnson, David Villar, and David Villar again. You did swell, chaps.

Pederson got robbed of a second homer by Luis Robert Jr., which would have tied the franchise record with eight dingers. That was set back in 1961, when Felipe Alou and Orlando Cepeda homered, Jose Pagan hit two out, and Willie Mays hit a quartet of long balls. I wondered what happened to those guys? I’ve never even heard of them.

The only other time in San Francisco’s history that seven homers have been hit came in 2002, predictably at Coors Field. That time it was David Bell homering once, and two-homer games by Damon Minor, Reggie Sanders, and Tsuyoshi Shinjo. I wonder what happened to those guys? I’ve never even heard of them. I’m no longer running a bit, either.

The Giants had seven-homer days four times in their New York days: 1956 (Hank Thompson, Wes Westrum x2, Daryl Spencer x2, and Willie Mays x2); 1950 (Hank Thompson, Al Dark, Whitey Lockman, Monte Irvin, and Wes Westrum x3); 1939 (Bill Lohrman, Jo-Jo Moore, Bob Seeds, Alex Kampouris, Zeke Bonura, and Frank Demaree x2); and again in 1939, two months earlier (Mel Ott, Frank Demaree, Burgess Whitehead, Manny Salvo, Harry Danning, and Jo-Jo Moore x2).

They sure don’t make names like they used to, huh.

What time do the Giants play today?

The Giants once again have a day off following the first game of a series. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know.