Recent power surge has the Giants joining modern game

After a few years of playing catchup, the San Francisco Giants, Wednesday’s clunker against the Washington Nationals notwithstanding, have joined the rest of MLB and are appear to be actively seeking to hit homers.

After finishing dead last in all of MLB in home runs hit last season, the San Francisco Giants are, this season, in a tie for ninth out of 30 teams — albeit just 24 games into the season. The Giants are roughly a fifth of the way to the 128 dingers they popped last season, with 25 already in 2018.

Where is this flicker of a power surge coming from? Their key free-agent acquisitions heating up, an oft-injured first baseman who is on a power streak right now, unexpected power from good hitters and the apparent emergence of a guy who, after bouncing between the majors and minors the last three seasons, seems to have finally figured out major league pitching.

After slow starts, free agent acquisitions Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen have started to come around, at least as far as going deep, as they have combined for six home runs, with half of those coming in the last week. Brandon Belt, the critics’ biggest target on the club, leads the team in nearly every offensive category and has gone deep five times in the last six games and leads the team with six round trippers. Joe Panik’s early power surge is the kind of long-ball contributions a team needs from players who are not necessarily known for their power. Recent call-up Mac Williamson, who after a adjustment to his swing, appears to finally have figured it out and is really starting to tap into his power.

The recent power surge is a welcome development for a team that has struggled to score runs or even collect hits. Overall, the Giants rank 18th in overall offense. If a team can’t string together hits to manufacture runs, it certainly helps to score on the hits it does generate.

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Selena Gomez put on quite a show on the College of San Mateo softball field Tuesday afternoon.

No, not the pop singer, but the left fielder for the Ohlone softball team, who had quite an inning during the Renegades’ 9-6 loss to conference champion San Mateo Tuesday afternoon.

In the top of the sixth inning, Gomez stroked a three-run bolt to pull her team to 9-6. In the bottom of the inning, she robbed a pair of CSM batters with a pair of spectacular catches — and a generous ruling by the umpires.

CSM’s Leaness Donn was looking to dump a single into shallow left-center field, but Gomez came streaking over and made not even a shoestring catch, but one off the top of the fake grass blades. Later in the inning, she went into the gap, using a backhand grab to apparently rob Allie Stines of extra base hits.

But almost after the instant of having the ball settle into her glove, Gomez awkwardly stumbled and went face-first into the fence. From my vantage point, the ball popped out her glove and was laying on the ground before her crumbled body covered it. The Ohlone center fielder alertly dug the ball out and relayed it back to the infield, with Stines standing on third with an apparent triple.

But the Ohlone head coach challenged the call and, after huddling, the umpires ruled the catch had been made and completed before the crash and subsequent fumble of the ball.

CSM head coach Nicole Borg said the Ohlone coach argued that Gomez had made the catch and took two steps before crashing into the wall. The umpires bought it and signaled Stines out to end the inning.

If nothing else, you could say the umpires rewarded Gomez for the effort.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. You can follow him on Twitter @CheckkThissOutt.