SAN FRANCISCO — As the Giants prepared for the 2021 season, they heard the chatter.
Nearly everyone around the baseball industry talked up the Dodgers and Padres, a pair of teams with loaded rosters who figured to make the National League West a two-team race.
With more than two-thirds of the season in the books, the Giants are 73-41 and hold a 4.0-game lead over the Dodgers and an 8.0-game lead over the Padres after their latest win, a 7-2 defeat of the Diamondbacks.
Despite Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler’s confidence the Giants had the makings of a playoff team, they were expected to vie with the Diamondbacks and Rockies for third place in a rugged division. In 16 games against an Arizona team that was supposed to provide even competition, the Giants are 14-2 and have posted a plus-49 run differential in those games.
A Giants team that leads the majors in home runs received four more on Wednesday as Buster Posey, LaMonte Wade Jr., Brandon Crawford and Alex Dickerson all hit impressive homers against a Diamondbacks pitching staff that’s largely been overmatched against San Francisco this season.
The power surge, which the Giants have become accustomed to even at home this season, overshadowed another underwhelming performance from starter Kevin Gausman, who was so dominant at the beginning of the year that expectations are still sky-high for the right-hander.
Gausman tossed five innings of two-run ball, but walked four hitters and didn’t have the same feel for his splitter after striking out the first two Diamondbacks hitters with the pitch on Wednesday. After striking out the side in the first, Gausman gave up four hits and issued all four of his walks over his final four frames while striking out just two more batters.
The Giants starter did help himself out at the plate with a second-inning RBI single and another base hit that preceded Wade’s homer, but it was the offensive catalysts the team has come to rely on this year who provided most of the spark.
Posey and Crawford each contributed to a first-inning rally as the Giants scored right away against Arizona starter Merrill Kelly, who tossed eight shutout innings against the club on Thursday in a dramatic 5-4 Diamondbacks loss at Chase Field.
In his second plate appearance of the evening, Posey lined a solo home run out to the right field arcade for his 15th home run of the year. After homering in Tuesday’s game, his opposite-field blast on Wednesday marked the first time the Giants catcher has hit homers on back-to-back days since Opening Night and the team’s second game of the season in Seattle.
Wade’s two-run shot to center field in the fourth inning marked his 14th of the season and 10th at Oracle Park, but a strong effort from Diamondbacks center fielder Ketel Marte nearly kept the ball in the yard. As Marte timed his leap in an effort to rob Wade, the flyball tipped off his glove and fell into the Arizona bullpen beyond the center field fence.
The next two Giants homers were solo shots as Crawford lined an opposite-field home run over the left center field fence for his 19th of the season and first since July 10. With the Giants ahead 6-2 in the eighth inning, Dickerson came off the bench and launched his first career Splash Hit into McCovey Cove.
Dickerson became the sixth different Giants player to hit a splash home run this season, which represents the team’s single-season record.
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